What I’d Like to A/B Test on Segment.com

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Anyone who has been deeply-ingrained working in the digital world, regardless of your profession or vertical, has seen some amazing innovation over the past decade. I know I certainly have.

Perhaps chief amongst those has been the incredible surge in MarTech innovation; seriously, check out this supergraphic of the landscape. Every single digital touchpoint has seen existing vendors build out their product offerings ten-fold, and new vendors pop up like weeds in the spring.

In my career, I’ve had the pleasure of building out integrations and documentation for developers of countless marketing technology tools. When I think about the sheer amount of hours I’ve spent writing out documentation, QAing said-documentation, and then stripping the existing tool to start fresh with a new tool a few months later scares me. Eventually, after all of this lost productivity and frustration, I knew there had to be a better way. The frustration did not just come from my time wasted, but also the developer’s time, each time we had to go through the same exercise, countless times. Alongside the opportunity cost of time spent was the cost to the business. Time = money. Each time multiple functional units spend days and weeks building out a new analytics & marketing integration, well that time can be better spent building great products.

So I started looking for a solution. Soon, I came across a company that solved for these problems and pretty much blew my digital mind; it’s called Segment.

My Dream Brand

If you’re not already aware of Segment, it is a marketing technology solution that functions a customer data hub. Its API allows you to send data to and from any platform or device, allowing Marketers & Developers to try over 200+ integrations & tools seamlessly and with little to no effort.

And for me, now utilizing my product analytics & optimization skills as a Growth Product Manager at Cro Metrics, I have the pleasure of partnering with some amazing companies to help lead their growth programs in order to help them grow through strategic, data-driven experimentation. 

However, if there was one brand that I’d love to work with to help them grow … hands down it would be Segment. So if I had the opportunity to work with the team at Segment and apply my expertise to help optimize their web properties and improve the customer experience to drive growth in revenue, I’d jump at the chance.

Keep reading to learn what I’d like to test on Segment.com.

Experimentation and Testing for Segment.com

Segment.com’s website has a very modern, sleek look & feel. You feel like you’re on a tech software/SaaS site for sure. It’s interactive with GIF-style modules and video. However, just because a site is sleek and visually-pleasing, it doesn’t mean that users will convert (in this case, sign up for a trial or contact sales). Actually, industry benchmarks suggest that SaaS lead-gen conversion rates average around 7% (source:xandermarketing.com). Along with 750K visits per month, that leaves a lot of room for conversion rate optimization improvement for driving lead gen on Segment.com (source. similarweb.com), despite the beautiful look of the site.

Based on a recent BuiltWith scan, they currently do have a full-stack of other analytics tools as well as Optimizely. This means they already may be doing some testing, which is great.

It’s also nice to see that they have their own tool installed on their site (home-cooking).

However, since I don’t have access to any of their internal analytics data or key performance objectives for the business, the following ideas will be based on a mix of general insights gathered from analytics tools such as Similarweb, as well as conversion optimization best practices based on my understanding of conversion funnels. Let the testing commence!

Experiment #1: Improve High-Value Channel Conversion by Personalizing for Engineers

As a power user of Segment.com’s software for years, I’ve never had too much trouble going to the website and finding the specific information about an integration that I needed. However, as an analytics geek at my core, I also know that I’m not Segment’s only target audience. Another key audience for them is Developers and/or Engineers.

So, putting myself in the shoes of a Developer landing on the homepage, I’d want to know more about the specifics of their APIs and documentation-  especially as it relates to understanding the effort and specifics of the API integration, which currently is lacking in clarity on the homepage. In fact, the part of the homepage that does speak to Developers is at the bottom near the footer. Currently, the homepage is a mix of information for Marketers and Developers. Our goal for this experiment is to target the Developer and get the right information in front of them to convert them into a lead.

 

 

 The problem here is developers may not fully get the education they need from the homepage about Segment’s API and how it works in a quick and easy-to-digest format. Our hypothesis is that a Developer seeing the developer-specific product page first, which is layered with Developer-specific information, the Developer would gain a better understanding of how Segment.com can help their engineering workflow and save them time & resources for every integration they have to build.

So for this test, I’d like to focus on a redirect test where users from Github and YCombinator who try to land on www.segment.com instead are redirected to www.segment.com/product. This page was tailor-made for Developers.

• The first iteration would simply be the redirect itself.

  • The test would measure bounce rate (primarily) and free trial sign ups (secondarily).

The product page has three key components that a Developer would find useful and entice them to learn more: Source, Destinations, and Data Management modules. The key to this test would be to thwart bounce rate, as this page is more conducive to driving conversions from a Developer.

Overall, this experiment will help us capture insights into Segment’s customer behaviors by determining if targeted pages for specific high-value cohorts is a more effective approach to reducing friction and helping drive lead generation.

Experiment #2: Reduce Friction in Free Trial Signup

SaaS websites have a big task: they have to convey the company ’s message, which is often multi-layered, in a short, user-friendly, and easily-digestible manner.

One good thing about Segment.com’s homepage is its use of visuals. A user can actually get the gist of what Segment.com does just by visuals alone. However, the homepage lacks a clear call-to-action (CTA) to drive Marketers and Developers to try Segment for a free trial.

There are only two CTAs for this – one on the above-the-fold module and one at the very bottom near the footer. 

 

The CTAs on the homepage seem to compete against each other. Above-the-fold, there are two CTAs for trying Segment for free and right below it a link to speak to a specialist. At the bottom, there are two side-by-side CTAs for requesting a demo and creating a free account – with even one more below those that invites users to “Try Segment Free.”

So for this test, I’d like to test unifying the CTAs around one universal message in key-value spots of the page.

• The first variation would add a blue “Free Trial” CTA on the top right next to Log In/Sign Up. Blue is a color scheme that does not compete against their current color scheme, but at the same time, stands out, and we’re trying to make this CTA stand out a bit more.

• The second variation would add green-colored CTAs next to each module on the page of “Free Trial” (next to the Source/Destinations module & the Integrations module). The reason for green is because it would fit in with the scheme of the modules and not compete visually, more so be part of the natural flow of the page.

• The third variation would replace the two bottom Request Demo/Create a Free Account CTAs to an elongated CTA to “Get Started with a Free Trial”.

  • The test would measure free trial sign ups (primarily) and paid account sign ups (secondarily).

My hypothesis is that by unifying the CTAs on the homepage to be centered around a free trial, which is often a less-invasive way for a user to get into the product and test it out for themselves before making a decision, we will not only increase free trial sign ups but also sign-ups for paid accounts. 

Overall, this experiment will help us learn if users are more willing to try Segment for free before speaking to any specialist or salesperson, with the ultimate goal of driving them down-funnel to a paid account. By enticing the user with a no-hassle, risk-free trial that allows them to test-drive the product, we will better understand the power of empowering a user vs. trying to force them down a specific path.

Experiment #3: Improve Lead Gen Through Customer Support Chat

How many times, let’s say, in the last year, have you called a customer support person vs. used a live chat customer support to get your questions answered? I bet if you look at the histogram over the last 5 years, you will see the trend steer more towards live chat. 

Why is that? Simple: convenience. We’re already on the site. Today’s consumer has more than ever become not only reliant on but demanding convenience. The more we as digital optimization practitioners are able to utilize that in practice, the more successful we will become. 

This test builds off of the “convenience demand” theory and looks to add a live chat icon onto the bottom right of the page as a sticky unit. When the user clicks on it, the unit expands to a live chat form that asks them to input their name and email (lead gen) and enter the chat queue line.

 

 

The first image is the control, with no live chat feature available, and the second image is with a sticky live chat icon on the bottom right of the page. Of course, this is an example. In the test, we will add it to key pages like the homepage vs. pricing page vs. product page as variants.

Live chat icons, while usually tucked away in the corners of web pages, have become universally understood and do not need to be intrusive for them to be noticeable.

Our hypothesis for this test is that by adding this seemingly small but potentially impactful live chat sticky unit, we will reduce visitor confusion around Segment.com-specific questions such as ones they can’t find on the site, can find but need more clarification around, want to know more about the product itself, etc.

So from this test, we will be able to learn if users, mainly Marketers & Developers, are not finding what they need within the site itself and need help understanding how Segment can help their business, ultimately driving them deeper into the funnel from acquisition to engagement. That will help to identify gaps in site design and UX as well, as specific live chat questions can help uncover problem areas of the site, as well as to help build lead-gen efforts, as many customers will ultimately convert from the live chat to a lead.

Overall, testing opportunities like this are great because every iteration is an opportunity to learn, form insights, create a new hypothesis, and test again. From icon to expanded icon, to form field and CTA testing itself, colors, etc., we are able to test the perfect mix of UX and strategic design to help convert users into leads, and eventually, paid accounts.

The Experimentation Roadmap for Segment.com

The roadmap for Segment.com is by no means limited to these three ideas. I can sit here all day and rattle off ideas about how to help convert visitors into leads and into paid accounts (even better if I had access to the data!). As Segment.com matures as a product and brand, particularly at the warp-speed pace of digital MarTech, it would be exciting to help optimize their funnel.

In any case, I certainly hope the team there starts thinking about how they can continue to grow their brand by creating more data-driven hypotheses for running experiments on their website. No doubt, Segment.com has and will continue to shape the future of how digital brands capture their various customer touch points, and even more so, utilize that data into action to help grow their business. I will continue to watch from the sidelines as a fan, but hopefully one day soon, I can be on the bench coaching the team there along.

Until then, we will continue to drive high value for our clients through strategic, data-driven decision making and innovative processes in our world of online experimentation.

If you’d like to learn more about how Cro Metrics can help your organization better understand your opportunities for driving growth, contact us.

Alan is a Growth Product Manager at Cro Metrics. Throughout his career, he has led product analytics for some of the most well-known brands in the digital media space, working in a multi-capacity role around product and analytics. Alan is a New Jersey native who spends a fair amount of his time rooting for his favorite New York area sports teams. Feel free to connect with him on LinkedIn.