Jasper Kuria is the Managing Partner of The Conversion Wizards a consulting firm that specializes in

CRO and Web Analytics. He is also the founder of Capital & Growth, a popular Q&A site that GeekWire

called “the ‘StackOverflow’ for Sales and Marketing for Technical Founders”. A former TechCrunch

columnist-at-large, he conducts live AMAs (Ask Me Anything) with prominent startup investors—

here’s an upcoming one with $1 Billion Y Combinator’s CEO Michael Seibel.

The Anatomy of a $97 Million Page: A CRO

Case Study

In this post, we share a CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) case study from Protalus, one of the fastest

growing footwear companies in the world. They make an insole that corrects the mis-alignment suffered

by roughly 85% of the population.

Mis-alignment is the cause of most back, knee and foot pain. Back pain alone is estimated to be worth

$100 billion a year.

Contents

1. Summary

2. 1-Click Upsells

3. Radical Redesign and Long Form Page: 58% Conversion Lift

a. 35% lift: Long form page

b. 17% lift: Performance improvements

4. Dissecting the Anatomy of the Winning Page

4.1 Price is Too High/Product Too Expensive

4.2 Not Sure the Product Will Work

4.3 Not Sure the Product Will Work for Me

4.4 Difficulty in Using the Site

4.5 Accentuate the Customers’ Reasons for Buying

4.6 Speed Testimonials

4.7 Patent Protection Exclusivity & Social Proof

4.8 Tying it All Together

5. Acknowledgement

6. Free CRO Audit

Summary

• We (with Protalus’ team) increased direct sales by 91% in about 6 months through 1-click upsells

and CRO.

• Based on the direct sales increase, current run-rate revenue, the ‘Virtuous Cycle of CRO’ fueled

growth rate and revenue multiple for their industry, we estimate this will add about $97 million

to the company’s valuation over the next 12 – 18 months*.

• A concrete example of the Virtuous Cycle of CRO: Before we increased the conversion rate and

average order value, Google Adwords was not a viable channel. Now it is, opening a whole new

floodgate of profitable sales! Ditto for at least two other channels. In part due to our work,

Protalus’ annual run-rate revenue has grown by 1,212% in less than a year.

* Protalus’ core product is differentiated, patent-protected and high margin. They also have a strong brand and

raving fans. In the Shoes & Apparel category, they are most similar to Lululemon Athletica which has a 4x plus

revenue multiple. While Nike and Under Armor engage in a bloody price war and margin-eroding celebrity

endorsements, Lululemon commands significantly higher prices than its peers, without big name backers! Business

gurus Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger often say that the true test of a defensive moat around a business is “Can

you raise prices without hurting sales?” Protalus has this in spades. They have raised prices several times while

simultaneously increasing units sold—from $39 to $49 to $59 to $69 to $79 to $99 to $119.

1-Click Upsells: 21% Sales Boost

When we do engagements the first order of business to uncover ‘low hanging fruit’ growth

opportunities. This accomplishes two things:

a. It helps the client get an immediate ROI on the engagement

b. It earns us goodwill and credibility within the company. We then have wide latitude to run the

big, bold experiments that produce huge conversion lifts

In Protalus’ case we determined they were not doing post-purchase 1-Click Upsells. Adding these

immediately boosted sales by 21%. Here’s how we did it:

• On their main sales landing page, Protalus has an offer where you get $30 off on the second pair

of insoles as well as free expedited shipping for both. About 30% of customers were taking this

offer.

• For those who didn’t, right after they purchased BUT BEFORE they got to the ‘Thank You’ page,

we presented the offer again, which led to the 21% sales increase.

Done correctly, 1-click upsells easily boost sales as customers do not have to re-enter credit card details.

Here’s the best way to do them: ‘The Little Secret that Made McDonalds a $106 Billion Behemoth.

Below is the final upsell page that got the 21% sales increase:

We tested our way to it. The key effective elements are:

a. Including “free upgrade to expedited shipping” in the headline: 145% lift

The original page had it lower in the body copy.

Google Experiments screen shot showing 145% lift.

b. Adding celebrity testimonials: 60% lift

Google Experiments screen shot showing a 60% lift.

Elisabeth Howard’s (Ms. Senior America) unsolicited endorsement is especially effective because

about 60% of Protalus’ customers are female and almost one third are retired. We uncovered

these gems by reviewing all 11,000 (at the time) customers testimonials.

c. Explaining the reasons why other customers bought additional insoles . See the three bulleted

reasons on the first screenshot.

Radical Re-design and Long Form Page: 58% Conversion Lift

With the upsells producing positive ROI for the client, we turned to re-designing the main sales page.

The new page produced a cumulative lift of 58%, attained in two steps.

Step 1: 35% Lift: Long-form Content Rich Page

Optimizely screenshot shows 35% lift at 99% statistical significance.

Note that even after reaching 99% statistical significance the lift fluctuated between 33% and 37% so we

will claim 35%.

Step 2: 17% Lift: Performance Improvements

The new page was quite a bit longer so its ‘fully loaded’ time increased a lot--especially on mobile

devices with poor connections. A combination of lazy loading, loss-less image shrinking, CSS sprites and

other ninja tactics led to a further 17% lift.

The optimizations reduced the page load time by 40% and shrunk the size by a factor of 4x!

The total cumulative lift is therefore 58% (1.35 x 1.17 = 1.58).

With the earlier 21% sales gain from 1-click upsells that is a 91% sales increase (1.21 x 1.35 x 1.17 =

1.91).

Dissecting the Anatomy of the Winning Page

To determine what vital few elements to change, we surveyed the non-converting visitors. Much of the

work in A/B testing is the tedious research required to understand non-converting visitors.

“Give me six hours to chop a tree and I'll spend the first four sharpening the axe” –Abraham Lincoln

All CRO practitioners would do well to learn from good, ol’ honest Abe! We used Mouseflow’s feedback

feature to survey bouncing visitors from main landing page and the check-out page. The top objection

themes were:

• Price is too High/Product too expensive

• Not sure it will work (because others didn’t work before)

• Not sure it will work for my specific condition

• Difficulty in using website

We then came up with specific counter objections for each: A landing page is “salesmanship in digital

print” so many of the techniques that work in face-to-face selling also apply.

On a landing page, though, you must overcorrect because you lack the back- and-forth conversation in a

live selling situation. Below is the list of key elements on the winning page.

1. Price is Too High/Product Is Too Expensive

This was by far the biggest objection, cited by over 50% of all respondents and so we spent a

disproportionate amount of effort and page real estate on it.

Protalus’ insoles cost $79 whereas Dr. Scholls (the 100-year-old brand) cost less than $10. When asked

what other products they considered, customers frequently said Dr. Scholls.

Coupled with this, nearly one third of customers are retired and living on a fixed income.

“I ain’t gonna pay no stinkin $79! They cost more than my shoes” one visitor remarked.

To overcome the price objection, we did a couple of things.

a. Articulated the core value proposition and attacked the price from the top

When prospects complain about price it simply means that they do not understand or appreciate the

the product’s value proposition. They are seeing this:

The product’s cost exceeds the perceived value.

To effectively deal with price you must tilt the scale so that it, instead, looks like this.

The perceived value exceeds cost

While the sub $10 Dr. Scholls was the reference point for many, we also learned that some customers

had tried custom orthotics ($600 to $3,000) and Protalus’ insoles compared favorably.

We therefore decided our core value proposition would be:

“Avoid paying $600 for custom orthotics. Protalus insoles are almost

as effective but cost 87% less”

forcing the $600 reference point instead of the $10 for Dr. Scholls. In the Conversion Rate heuristic we

use, the value proposition is the single biggest lever.

We explained all this from a ‘neutral’ educational standpoint rather than a salesy one in three steps:

First, we use “market data” to explain the cause of most pain and establish that custom orthotics are

more effective than over the counter insoles. Market data is always more compelling than product data

so you should lead with it.

Next, like a good trial lawyer, we show why Protalus insoles are similar to custom orthotics but cost 87%

less:

Finally, we deal with the ‘elephant in the room’ and explain how Protalus insoles are fundamentally

different from Dr. Scholls:

We also used several verbatim customer testimonials to reinforce this point:

Whenever possible, let others do your bragging!

b. Attacked Price from the bottom

Here, we used a technique known as “break the price down to the ridiculous”. $79 is just 44 cents per

day, less than a K-cup of coffee which most people consume once or twice a day! This makes the price

more palatable.

c. Used the quality argument

The quality technique is from Zig Ziglar’s Sales Training. You say to a prospect:

“Many years ago our company/founder/founding team made a basic decision. We decided it would be

easier to use the highest quality materials and explain price one time than it would be to apologize for

low quality forever. When you use the product/service, you’ll be glad we made that decision"

It is especially effective if the company has a well-known ‘maker’ founder (like Yvon Chouinardat at

Patagonia). It doesn’t work as well for MBAs or suits, much as we need them!

Protalus’ founder Chris Buck designed the insoles and has a cult-like following, so it works for him.

d. Dire Outcomes of not taking action

Here we talked about the dire outcomes if you do not get the insoles. For example, surgery, doctors’

bills and lost productivity at work! Many customers work on their feet all day (nurses, steelworkers etc)

so this last point is highly relevant.

Microsoft employed this technique successfully against Linux in the early 2000s. While Linux was free,

the ‘Total Cost of Ownership’ for not getting Windows was much higher when you considered support,

frequent bugs, less accountability, fewer feature updates and so on.

2. Not Sure the Product Will Work

For this objection, we did the following:

a. Used Dr. Romansky

Prominently featured Dr. Romansky, Protalus’ resident podiatrist. A consultant to the US Men’s and

Women’s soccer teams and the Philadephia Phillies baseball team, he has serious credibility.

The ‘educational’ part of the landing page (above the fold) is done in ‘his voice’. Before, only his name

appeared on a rarely visited page. This is an example of a ‘hidden wealth’ opportunity!

b. Used Celebrity Testimonials on the Main Landing Page

Back in 1997 a sports writer asked Phil Knight (Nike’s founder) “Surely, is there no better way for you to

spend $100 million?”

You see, Knight had just paid the staggering sum to a young Tiger Woods and it seemed extravagant!

Knight’s answer? An emphatic “No!”.

That $100 million would generate several billion dollars in sales for Nike over the next decade!

Celebrity testimonials work. Period.

Since our celebrity endorsements increased the 1-click upsell take-rate by 60% we also used them on

the main page:

c. Used Expert Reviews

We solicited and included expert reviews from industry and medical professionals. Below are two of the

four we used.

These also helped address the price concern because some site visitors had expressed discomfort paying

so much for an over-the-counter product without doctor recommendation.

3. Not Sure the Product Will Work for Me

This is different from “Not sure the product will work” and needs to be treated separately. If there’s one

thing we’ve learned over the years, it is that everyone thinks their situation is one in a million unique!

We listed all the conditions that Protalus insoles address as well as those they do not.

In addition, we clearly stated that the product does not work for 15% of the population

By conspicuously admitting this (NOT just in the fine print section!) you are more credible. This is

expressed in the Prospect’s Protest as:

“First tell me what your product CANNOT do and I might believe you when you

tell me what it can do!”

4. Difficulty in Using the Site

Several visitors reported difficulty using the site so we used Mouseflow’s powerful features to detect

and fix usability issues.

Interestingly, the visitor session recordings confirmed that price was a big issue as we could clearly see

prospects navigate to the price, stare incredulously and then leave!

5. Accentuate the Customers’ Reasons for Buying

Most of the opportunity in CRO is in the non-converting visitors (often over 90%) but understanding

converting ones can yield crucial insights*

For Protalus, the top reasons for buying were:

• Desperation/too much leg, knee or back pain/willing to try anything (This is the 4m, for

motivation, in the strategic formula we use.)

• The testimonials were persuasive

• Video was convincing

On the last point, the Mouseflow heatmaps showed that those who watched the video bought at a

much higher rate, yet few watched it.

We therefore placed the video higher above the fold, used an arrow to draw attention and inserted a

sub-headline:

A million-dollar question we ask buyers is:

“Was there any reason you ALMOST DID NOT buy?”

Devised by Cambridge-educated Dr. Karl Blanks, who coined the term “Conversion Rate Optimization” in

2006, this question earned him a knighthood from the Queen of England! Thanks Sir Karl!

It is a great question because its answer is usually the reason many others didn’t buy. For every person

who almost didn’t buy for reason X, I guarantee at least three others did not buy!

Given the low response rates when surveying non-converting visitors, this question helps get additional

intelligence. In our case, price came up again.

*Sometimes the customers’ reasons for buying will surprise you. One of our past clients is in the eCigarette/vaping

business and a common reason cited by men for vaping was “to quit smoking because of my young daughter”. They

almost never said “child” or “son”! Armed with this knowledge, we converted a whole new segment of smokers

who had not considered vaping.

6. Speed Testimonials

One of the most frequently asked questions was: How soon can I expect relief? While Protalus

addressed this in their Q&A section we included conspicuous “speed testimonials” on the main page:

For someone in excruciating pain, the promise of fast relief is persuasive!

7. Patent Protection Exclusivity & Social Proof

Many of Protalus’ site visitors are older and still prefer to buy in physical stores, as we learned from our

survey. They may like the product but then think “I’ll buy them at the store”. We clarified that the

product is only available on Protalus’ site.

Mentioning the patent-protection added exclusivity, one of the two required elements for a compelling

value proposition.

At its core, landing page optimization isn’t about optimizing pages. A page just happens to be the

medium used to optimize thought sequences in the prospect’s mind.

Dr. Flint likes to say, “the geography of the page determines the chronology of thought sequences in the

prospect’s mind.” As shown above, we repeated the social proof elements at the point of purchase.

8. Tying it All Together

After systematically addressing each objection and adding various appeal elements, we strung them all

in the cohesive long-form page below.

We start with a powerful headline and Elisableth’s story because it is both intriguing and relevant to

Protalus’ audience which skews female and over 55. The only goal of a headline is to get visitors to read

what comes next NOT to sell.

The product’s price is not mentioned until we have told a compelling story, educated visitors and

engaged them emotionally.

Note that the winning page is several times longer than the control. There is a mistaken belief that you

“just need to get to the point” because people won’t read long pages. In fact, a previous consultant told

Protalus that their sales were low because the “buy button” wasn’t high enough on the page 😊

Nothing could be further from the truth. For a high-priced product, you must articulate a compelling

value proposition before you sell!

But also note the page is “as long as necessary but as short as possible”. Buy buttons are sprinkled

liberally after the initial third of the page so that those who are convinced needn’t “sit through the

entire presentation.”

Acknowledgement

We’d like to thank team Protalus for giving us wide latitude to conduct bold experiments and for

allowing us to publish this. Their entrepreneurial culture has been refreshing. We are most grateful to

Don Vasquez, their forward thinking CMO (and minority owner), for trusting the process and standing by

us when the first test caused some revenue loss.

Thanks to Hayk Saakian, Nick Jordan, Yin-so Chen and Jon Powell for reading drafts of this piece.

Free CRO Audit

I can’t stress this enough. CRO is hard work. We spent countless hours on market research, studied visitor

behavior and reviewed tens of thousands of customer comments before we ran a single A/B test. We

also solicited additional testimonials from industry experts and doctors. There is no magical silver bullet,

just lots of little lead ones!

Results like this don’t happen by accident. If you are unhappy with your current conversion rate for

sales, leads or app downloads, first, we encourage you to review the tried and true strategic formula.

Next, we would like to offer Moz readers a free CRO audit. We’ll also throw in a free SEO (Search Engine

Optimization) review. While we specialize in CRO, we’ve partnered with one of the best SEO firms due to

client demand.

Lastly, we are hiring. Review the roles and reasons why you should come work for us!