conversion camp: the complexity of love and conversions, skyscanner
TRANSCRIPT
The complexity of and conversions
Who am I?
Hi, I’m David Hamill
User researcher with lots of experience yadda yadda yadda…
I bikes
I using bizarre metaphors
I’m going to talk about…
How love and conversion are different things
I’m going to talk about…
How conversion optimisation can be complicated on a widely loved product
I’m going to avoid…
metaphors about shagging
I’m going to build up to a rather disappointing
conclusion.
So I’ll apologise now.Sorry!
If this talk gets boring get into Twitter…
#hipsterbandnamesPrize for the best name
Here is my attempt.
Bearded Bob and the Organic Spaniel Hearts
#hipsterbandnames
An introduction to Skyscanner
Compares flights, hotels and car hire.
40m+ monthly users35m+ downloads30+ languages
We’re data driven
We design and build mobile first
Lots of people
Why?
They
going on vacation
Why?
They
saving money
Why?
They
clarity
Does increasing increase ? $
Making a product that people love can be in some way at odds with making
one that converts well
Let’s talk about…
Tell Hitlist the places you’d like to visit and it lets you know when there’s a good
deal on flights
How it works…
Redesign of the app
https://medium.com/what-i-learned-building/the-user-is-always-right-eab73c620e7d
Redesign of the app
Engagement metrics suffered
Redesign of the app
Loyal users weren’t happy
Redesign of the app
But conversion did this…
Redesign of the app
…and retention did this(when they started measuring it)…
“… there are two things that matter for an early stage consumer app: conversion and retention. User
growth is important too, but you can buy new users”
Yes, but that’s expensive
… and this is free
“… what do you get when you fall in love?”
Burt Bacharach
Love + Advocacy
Loyalty = Repeat traffic
Advocacy = New traffic
The people who love a digital product are not
always the people who pay for it
“Your love gives me such a thrill.
But your love won’t pay my bills.
I want my money.”J. Bradford, B Gordy
How does Skyscanner make money?
Airlines and travel agents pay Skyscanner for sending
qualified traffic*
*This does not effect the price you pay. It’s free for you.
We don’t make any money from this guy
(but we still love him)
Love ✓Booked ✗
Love ✗Booked ✓
Love ✓Booked ✓
The ideal The primary goal
Most people search a number of sites before
booking a flight
Conversion optimisation for meta search doesn’t work
as you might expect
You want to know more about this hotel.
What would you do?
Bit sparse isn’t it?
Kayak don’t do this because
it doesn’t convert well for
them.
LateRooms is selling you a
good deal on a hotel.
Kayak is finding a deal for
you.
The same hotel on LateRooms
Trivago
Has lots of information but it’s not very easy to find
Click this bit
Trivago
Then this bit
Trivago
Trivago
They want you to click here
Trivago
Isn’t it better to make sure users are fully informed about the hotel first?
There is such a thing as too much information
Might book No intention of booking
Aware of detailsNeeds more details
Details OK Details not OK
The possibility of a booking
Those who need more details will either find them to be OK or find something they can’t accept. Booking is impossible =
Booking is possible =
Might book No intention of booking
Aware of detailsNeeds more details
Details OK Details not OK
Conversion optimisation for meta search
Maximise the users in the green bits
Might book No intention of booking
Aware of detailsNeeds more details
Details OK Details not OK
Conversion optimisation for meta search
Showing too much information slows the flow of people being referred to
booking sites
R x B = C
R = referral rateB = downstream booking rate
C = actual conversion rate
Conversion optimisation for meta searchConversion optimisation for meta search
Conversions on Skyscanner
Conversion optimisation for meta search
On mobile it’s even more weighted to research (just now)
Everyone can love our product but only a small proportion can feasibly
convert
Our commercial team has a bigger impact on UX than our designers
Let’s play a game
Let’s play a game
People love our Everywhere search feature.
It converts poorly.
They use it to research and often to simply dream.
Let’s play a game
If we increased the number of users going through this feature it would reduce conversions.
What would you do?
Some travel agents use dodgy pricing tricks to attract referrals. We get complaints about it, but when we remove them…
Retention makes no improvement
Conversion drops significantly
Would you keep them on the site?
You have a flexible pricing tool on the results page
People who use it convert poorly
When you remove it you get lots of complaints but conversions go up
Would you keep it on the page?
You know that lots of people love a featureBut in usability tests many new users find it difficult to use.
So you make it a little harder to find…
Conversions go up
People start complaining about the ‘missing’ feature they loved
Would you put it back where it
was?
Conclusion:Conversion isn’t everything.
But it’s very very very important.
Time for…
#hipsterbandnameshttps://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%23hipsterbandnames&src=typd