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.

Website, apps, API and B2B products

http://www.skyscanner.net

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

“Perhaps users will love it and conversions will go up”

someone.important@skyscanner.net

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