The Growth Vault

Every piece of copy is unique.

Yet no matter the situation, the same mistakes seem to show up over and over again.

At least that's what Neville Medhora, founder of Copywriting Course, observed after answering over 20k questions from his students.

Here are 8 of the most common copy mistakes, with solutions to quickly solve them:

Mistake #1: Putting too many CTAs on a page or email

• Why it's bad: Including too many CTAs causes each of them to compete against one another (e.g., Join, Click, Buy, Read More). This dilutes your message and leads to decision fatigue—both of which hurt conversion. And especially in email, once a reader clicks a link, they're unlikely to come back and click anything else.
• Quick fix and result: Pick one CTA and write your copy for that specific action. Your messaging and conversion should be stronger.

Mistake #2: Using too many buzzwords or jargon

• Why it's bad: Buzzwords are vague and confusing. Jargon is usually too specific for most audiences, which is also confusing. Neither one clearly tells the reader about your product or how it benefits them. This makes it a chore to read and hurts conversion.
• Quick fix and result: Replace buzzwords and jargon with direct, simple language that a 5th grader could understand. You'll help readers value your offer.

Mistake #3: Busy pages with bad layouts

• Why it's bad: Crowded pages are bad UX. They're tough to read and distract from the copy—the most important part.
• Quick fix and result: Make the simplest possible page layout and use negative space to your advantage. That means simple words, distraction-free layouts that emphasize those words, and short, concise explanations to get the message across. People will be more likely to read your copy and take action.

Mistake #4: New writers trying to copy content from major blogs

• Why it's bad: Major blogs tend to write about the same broad and stale topics over and over again. Articles like, "how to start a business" or "complete guide to losing weight." This usually makes for mediocre content that isn't very useful.
• Quick fix and result: Instead of writing for the masses about the same broad topics that have been covered ad nauseam, write about the specific problems your product aims to solve. Your content will resonate more if you include personal stories from experience, anecdotes, and interviews. This gives your content personality, a memorable human element.

Mistake #5: Subheadings that don't guide the reader through an article

• Why it's bad: Most people skim through content to get the gist from subheadings. Bland subheadings make your content hard to scan, and many readers will just bounce.
• Quick fix and result: Tell the story of your content using descriptive subheadings. Your content will be more engaging, and more readers will stick around to read the full article. And readers who just want to skim will still get value from the subheadings alone.

Mistake #6: Writing "How To" content without giving practical actions

• Why it's bad: When your content fails to give readers practical actions to take, it doesn't actually help the reader. It's also forgettable—if there's no action to take, the reader probably won't remember your advice.
• Quick fix and result: Include at least one actionable takeaway in every section of your article. This makes for better content, happier readers, and actionable content is much more likely to get shared.

Mistake #7: Awkward cold emails with bad intros

• Why it's bad: Gimmicky, insincere email intros are guaranteed to turn the reader off immediately. They probably won't read past the intro, and they definitely won't convert. They may even dislike you and delete your email.
• Quick fix and result: Write the email as if you're speaking to a friend. Be direct and concise, don't pitch them upfront, and state a simple, obvious reason for why you're emailing them in the first place (e.g., "I saw that we're in the same Slack group and wanted to reach out"). Have a legitimate reason for reaching out. You'll build better relationships and more conversions that way.
• Note: We cover how to write a cold email in detail here.

Mistake #8: Overthinking email style and format

• Why it's bad: When you only write one draft, you don’t have anything to test, you get stuck on design instead of conversions, and you put yourself under a lot of pressure to get it right on the first try.
• Quick fix and result: When testing different formats, write three versions: one short, one medium, and one long. That way, you'll move quicker because there’s less pressure and more creative freedom, and you’ll have extra versions to test. In the long run, this will help you land on a style and format that resonates most with your audience.

Check out Neville's full post which has helpful visual examples.

All eyes are on TikTok as the next big opportunity in paid social.

TikTok is unsaturated—competition is low and traffic is affordable. And its userbase is snowballing across audiences worldwide.

But is now the right time for you to test TikTok ads as a new ad channel? Before you launch into testing, consider these questions:

1. Can you commit the budget to test TikTok ads properly? Every new channel has a cost of entry, and you have to spend to learn. We recommend setting aside 10% - 30% of your ad budget to test this channel properly. It’ll likely take 6-10 weeks to test and validate TikTok as a paid acquisition channel.
2. Does TikTok align with your product? TikTok ads perform well for DTC ecom brands and mobile apps. DTC ecom brands selling visual products with broad appeal, short sales cycles, and AOVs between $25 - $100 tend to get the most out of TikTok. Similarly, mobile apps and games work well since free app installs are low-friction. TikTok ads can work for many other types of products, but consider how your product aligns with the channel before testing.
3. Do you have the capacity to focus on TikTok as a separate channel in your ad mix? TikTok is an entirely different beast than Facebook. To give TikTok ads a fair shot, you'll need to invest resources into producing a high volume of channel-specific creatives that you can test diligently. Whether you make them yourself or partner with content creators, having a high volume of creatives ready to go is essential.
4. Have you seen success with Snapchat ads, IG Reels, or IG Stories? If you've had success with any of these channels and want to diversify, TikTok is a logical next step. TikTok can have cheaper CPAs, cheaper CPMs, and higher quality traffic than Snapchat or Instagram. You can try repurposing Snapchat/IG assets because these types of ads are typically vertical UGC videos, precisely the kind of content that performs best on TikTok. And if you have the original video content, even better. You can cut new ads, making full use of TikTok's audiovisual publishing tools to achieve the right aesthetic.

If you answered 'yes' to all four questions, TikTok ads might be worth testing now.

If not, and you're still interested in experimenting with TikTok, consider experimenting with an organic TikTok strategy before you dive into ads.

Hiring for SEO positions is a notoriously difficult and time-consuming process.

Unless you're an SEO expert yourself, you likely lack the domain knowledge needed to properly vet candidates and entrust them to deliver results. And SEO is an investment—results often take 6-12 months. That requires massive trust in who you hire.

So, if you're thinking about hiring an SEO operator and don't have the time to brush up on technicals or source a trusted referral, use these sample interview questions to help expedite the interview process and find a qualified candidate:

• How do you check whether a URL is indexed by Google? Every operator should know the site: command. This displays all indexed pages in the SERPs.
• How do you block a URL from being indexed? This question is meant to see if they actually know the purpose of a no-index tag and don't confuse it with blocking a page in robots.txt. The former tells Google not to index a page while keeping it in the sitemap. The latter keeps pages out of Google's index completely.
• What are the most important SEO ranking factors, in your opinion? No definitive answer here. Listen to their perspective and see if they can explain how multiple ranking factors contribute to overall rankings. A good candidate will:
• Back up their answers with data and relevant experiences.
• Have on-the-job examples to share.
• Avoid absolute statements and not be afraid to say "it depends" (SEO is nuanced and case-specific).
• What SEO myths have you had enough of? Only an experienced SEO should be able to answer this question. Ask them to elaborate on their favorite SEO myths and how they navigate them in their work. Their answer should provide insight into their learnings and strategy—the development of their process.
• What are some quick technical SEO wins? No right answer here, but you want to see if they can differentiate between and prioritize low-impact, high-impact, low-effort, and high-effort optimizations.
• For example, compressing images and deleting thin content are low-effort, high-impact actions. Optimizing meta descriptions on blog posts is a high-effort, low-impact one.
• A site that's been online for 9 months is getting zero traffic. Why? There are a million reasons why an established site might not be getting traffic. They should be able to offer several possible scenarios—with solutions—that illustrate why that is. This question is meant to explore their ability to problem-solve, think critically, and be creative—all requisite SEO skills.
• How do you perform a technical SEO audit? Like the last question, there are many ways to skin a cat. The point of this one is to check if they have a process in place for auditing a website. Some follow-up questions:
• What tools do they use and how do they use them?
• What are the first things they look for in an audit, and why?
• How have they resolved particular issues and what were the results?

Bonus: Ask the candidate to explain their SEO strategy in a way a child could easily understand. This is harder than it sounds, but if they can get the point across without all the jargon and technical mumbo jumbo, that's a good sign they know their stuff.

Check out the article for the full list of questions.

Consumers now have a sixth sense for inauthenticity. We can tell when a brand is jumping on a bandwagon just because it’s the trendy thing to do, or when they’re saying all the right things but not following through with all the right actions.

How can you overcome consumer distrust? Two possibilities are to talk about your competitors and share bad reviews.

It sounds illogical. But by talking about competitors and bad reviews, you'll:

• Create a warmer brand perception. Transparency and authenticity increase brand trust.
• Surprise seen-it-all-before consumers. Most brands talk about themselves (and only in a positive light). Acknowledging competitors and addressing bad reviews is novel.
• Overcome key objections, like they’re not as good as x competitor or any concerns that often come up in negative reviews. Praising competitors might increase perceptions of competence, and addressing bad reviews is a direct way to dispel whatever objections are discussed in them.

Talk about your competitors. In a series of Facebook ads for a fictional car wash company, an ad that praised a competitor got a 5.4% click-through rate (“Precision Car Wash congratulates LikeNew Car Wash. Our fiercest competitor and the Industry Best 2020 Award recipient!”).

Compare that to a 3.3% CTR for a self-promotional ad (“Precision Car Wash is proud to receive the Industry Best 2020 Award”) and 1.8% for an ad with a third-party endorsement (“The Industry Best 2020 Award committee is proud to announce Precision Car Wash as this year’s Best 2020 Award recipient”).

Praising a competitor seems risky and unlikely. When a brand does it successfully, they come across as genuine. And sincerity is skepticism’s biggest foe.

Share bad reviews. Peloton did this earlier this year with ads featuring negative comments like “overpriced coat rack”—followed by praise from those same people a few years later.

If you share bad reviews, balance them with positives like Peloton did. Prove that either 1) the criticism is no longer valid or 2) it was never justified to begin with.

Don’t overdo either of these tactics, or it could start to backfire. Always keep copy fresh and authentic.

Roughly 50% of Twitter engagement happens within the first hour of posting.

This means apart from creating interesting social content, timing is crucial for getting your tweet seen.

And according to an analysis of more than 7.6 million Twitter likes and 139,000 follows, you should decide when to post your content based on the type of content you post.

In short:

• Post in the morning if your content is educational in nature.
• This includes how-to guides and business/science news.
• Example: Much of the New York Times’ tweets
• Post in the evening or late afternoon if your content provides immediate gratification.
• This includes memes, celebrity gossip, food pics, and promotional offers, like a flash sale.
• Examples: Entertainment Weekly, McDonald’s

Your Twitter posts are more likely to get higher engagement if you follow this pattern. In fact, this trend even applies on weekends, and to subjects that aren’t relevant to work.

Researchers suspect that this is because our self-control declines over the course of the day—making us prefer more immediately gratifying content in the evening.

To plan your Twitter posts accordingly:

• Categorize your content into two types: educational and entertaining.
• Schedule educational posts to go live before 4 pm and entertaining posts for after this point.
• If you primarily focus on one category of content, adjust your publishing time accordingly.
• Consider experimenting with the timing of your content on other channels, e.g., Facebook, Instagram, even email.

Marketing on TikTok remains an untamed beast for most businesses. The creative requirements are incredibly steep and specific compared to those of other social ad channels.

To get started on the right track, follow these helpful starter strategies:

1. < 1-second thumbstop. TikTok and Instagram Reels have drastically shortened attention spans. You might have a 3-second window to grab someone's attention on Facebook. On TikTok, you only have one second. Design your ads assuming people will only see the first thumbnail. And use catchy headlines and audio to reel them in.
2. Showcase the end-state first. Arrange your creative in reverse chronological order; open your video with the benefit to the customer and showcase the end result. Then show how they got to that end result thanks to your product.
3. Mimic organic product discovery content. Ecommerce products get discovered on TikTok via "digital" word-of-mouth marketing (i.e., everyday people gushing over remarkable product finds, completely organic). To tap into this existing user behavior, design your ecommerce ads to mimic hashtag trends like "TikTok made me buy it" or "things I found on the internet."
4. Authenticity is key. Well-produced, airbrushed content doesn't fly on TikTok. Users value authenticity. Two ways to make your ads more authentic: a) entertain viewers with an earnest performance, like a comedy skit, and integrate your product, seamlessly or b) educate via product demonstration and a believable, emotional reaction of someone experiencing the benefits.
5. Install the TikTok pixel. TikTok needs a lot of data to optimize your ads. Even if you aren't ready to experiment with ads yet, consider installing the pixel now so it'll be ready when you are. This will give you better targeting and ad optimization from day one.
6. Set up an MVP brand profile. Establish an organic brand profile before launching ads to test content types and find your audience. Virality potential is high and feedback, immediate, so if you create quality content, TikTok's algo will find an audience. Once you iterate towards a formula that works, use engagement and video view data for targeting and lookalikes in your ads.
7. Always-on creative testing. Ads fatigue faster on TikTok than any other ads platform. To stay ahead of the curve, set up an always-on creative testing campaign in your ad account. Inject new creatives tests on a weekly basis, and move winners into a dedicated prospecting campaign with your top-performers. Rinse and repeat.
8. Leverage trending audio and video syles. Don't make ads. Make TikToks. Utilize trending audio or video effects in every video you produce. The more organic, the better. Also, use captioning and voice-over to reinforce your core message and help keep viewers engaged.

TikTok got more traffic than Google last year (source: Cloudflare).

That sentence has a ton of implications for marketers. Here’s one: Search might start getting much more visual.

Imagine a truly multimedia search engine, with visual queries, data, and results. It would align more with our TikTok-Instagram world than hyperlinks and text. We’re not there yet, but Google’s making progress with initiatives like its Multitask Unified Model system, which could one day respond to a photo of hiking boots with feedback on whether they’re suitable for a hike up Mt. Fuji.

In the meantime, we already have visual recognition technology like Google Lens and Bing Visual Search. And they’re already advanced. Just snap a pic and get relevant search results.

To optimize for a visual-search world:

• Make sure your pages pass Google’s mobile-friendly test. Pretty much all Google Lens searches are done on mobile.
• Add descriptive image file names and alt text wherever they’re missing from your content.
• Visual search is yet another reason to optimize your site content as a whole. High-authority pages and sites are more likely to appear in Google Lens results.
• Keep creating high-quality written content. Brian Dean found that the pages Google Lens pulls image results from have an average 1,631 words of text. That text provides context, helping Google Lens do its job.
• Visual search could increase brand exposure. E.g., someone takes a picture of a competing product → your logo’ed product appears in results. Consider adding branding to items that don’t have it.

Most growth marketers are familiar with the following:

• Say-do gap: when customers say one thing during interviews/surveys, then do another
• Referral gap: when customers say they’d be comfortable giving a referral, but don’t
• Creepiness ditch: the void where personalization starts to feel creepy, resulting in fewer conversions, not more

Here’s another one: the gap between site browsing and adding products to cart. Aka the browse-cart gap.

It’s a pretty big deal. Salecycle found that 43.8% of retailer site sessions include product page views, but only 14.5% result in add-to-carts.

One way to reduce the gap? Browse-abandonment emails. They’re a form of retargeting that aren’t as common as cart-abandonment emails—even though compared to traditional emails, they have a 50.5% higher click-through rate and 80.9% higher open rate.

• Use browse-abandonment emails to remind site visitors of what they were looking at. Feature product images, and make it easy to get back to browsing with high-contrast CTAs. This is a good space for overcoming objections—you could highlight free shipping or your easy return policy—and sharing social proof, like customer reviews.
• Consider that visitors might have decided against the products they were viewing, so open up the playing field. Showcase other products that might draw them back in. These could include best-sellers or products that are relevant to viewed product pages or past purchase history.

As with all email, you should segment and personalize. You’ll only be able to retarget people who are already on your email list, and while that’s limiting, it does mean stronger brand interest and possibly higher intent. Take advantage of that to close the gap and the sale.

In-cart cross-sells can boost AOV.

But only if the products you’re featuring are relevant to the items already in your customers’ carts.

A Baymard study found that 52% of sites recommend products that are either completely irrelevant or based only on what other customers bought.

In 2022, most people expect a personalized online shopping experience, which is why irrelevant cross-sells rarely work. And worse, they erode users’ confidence in your site and business—dragging down your AOV.

If cross-selling is part of your ecom strategy, consider these 6 tactics to help improve take rate and AOV:

1. Avoid listing a fixed number of products: One highly relevant suggestion that stands alone will get more attention than if it’s buried amongst four irrelevant suggestions. For example, If someone is buying a computer mouse, only show them the batteries they'll need, not batteries plus a random selection of office supplies just to fill up space.
2. Be cautious about listing alternative products: Introducing alternative products during checkout can cause the customer to second-guess their decision, consider other options, and abandon the checkout process—the last thing you want. Products that complement the item in the cart should be shown over alternative products. For example, if someone is ready to buy a pair of AirPods, don't recommend a headset from Bose or Beats by Dre.
3. Use labels to define the context: If you want to present a cross-sell but don't have a high relevance product, consider using labels like "Inspired by Your Browsing History," "Frequently Bought Together," or "Other Products in This Collection." Users will be less dismissive of questionable product recommendations if you simply give them a reason.
4. Prioritize products of the same use case or theme: Giving priority to products of the same use case or theme can prevent seemingly unrelated items from being displayed. For example, cross-sell sections with labels like "Winter Essentials", or "Back to School" allow sites to make reasonable suggestions as long as they're thematically related.
5. Feature products that customers need to get started: Some examples: A toy that requires batteries to operate, a mobile phone with specific dimensions for a protective case, or a camera needing a particular memory card type.

If you’re building a brand, you need quality assets. Think, photo and video for your site, social channels, ads you might run, and the content you create.

Here’s an effective workaround for brands looking for a fast, inexpensive way to source the top three types of quality creative assets you need using vendors.

• Product shots. Use Soona for a quality virtual shoot. Simply choose what types of shots you’re looking for, provide details, and ship your products. You’ll live chat with your photographer so you can make sure you get the shots you need. And you should have finished assets in about 2 weeks.
• High-quality stock video. Use Social Motion Packs for beautiful video content. You can buy individual content packs or a subscription to their library.
• UGC. Use Billo to source talent. Spec out exactly what type of UGC you want. Creators will apply for your project and you choose those who best fit your brand. Send them products. Approve their content as they submit.

Pencil used this process and sourced loads of quality content for their brand ... at a cost of $343.

Most content marketers know how to use Ahrefs for keyword research, backlink research, and site analysis.

But there are other powerful ways you can use Ahrefs that many marketers don’t know about. If you’re working in content marketing, consider trying these three tactics:

• Size your market. Using Keyword Explorer, look up your target keyword. Then click on the three dots in the corner of the Volume box and click “Export as CSV.” The CSV file shows how the volume of your target keyword has fluctuated over the last 5+ years. This will help you figure out whether your market is shrinking or expanding—which is nice to know before you invest in creating content for that keyword.
• Define your content clusters. When your keyword research turns up a group of similar or related keywords, it’s hard to decide how exactly to structure your pillar page. For guidance, enter these keywords into Keyword Explorer. Then in the sidebar, click “Traffic Share By Pages.” Look at the page that ranks for the most keywords you entered and earns the largest share of traffic—you can take notes on page structure, depth, and topics to use for your pillar page.
• Build links from pages with greater traffic potential. Avoid simply judging link-building targets based on their domain rating (or another authority score)—most of these scores matter less than they did years ago. Instead, prioritize building links from sites that drive more traffic. To do this, look up the URL of a competitor page that ranks for your target keyword in Site Explorer. Go to Backlinks and sort by page traffic. The top referring pages that drive the most traffic are the sites you should prioritize getting a link from, regardless of their domain rating.

Many B2B and consumer SaaS startups create free resource templates for their target audience to use with the goal of nurturing them into paying customers.

They tend to offer these templates as part of a blog post. For example, an email service provider might provide cold email templates as part of a guide to cold outreach.

This SEO strategy is a great way to attract visitors—but you can get even more from it by creating standalone landing pages for each of your resources. Hypercontext, an employee engagement app, did exactly this by creating separate landing pages for each of its 60+ meeting templates. The result was a 51% organic traffic boost in just three months.

To be clear, Hypercontext still includes its templates in some of its blog posts. For example, it’s published:

• 4 things to include in your daily scrum meeting agenda [Template]: A blog post giving best practices about planning scrum meetings
• Scrum Team Meeting Template: A landing page where users can immediately access Hypercontext’s free template

To avoid keyword cannibalization, Hypercontext focuses its blog posts on other relevant info not provided in its templates. Meanwhile, it keeps its template pages very short and to the point.

Why does this strategy work? The standalone pages grab more long-tail template-related keywords than a blog post might. And since users searching specifically for templates usually have more of a transactional intent (and likely less interest in reading a long blog post), your standalone template pages actually better satisfy user intent.

Common marketing wisdom tells us that on-site user reviews are a great form of social proof for converting prospects.

This is generally true. But for DTC ecom brands, you might be collecting and displaying your reviews in the wrong place.

Research shows that users spend little time looking at DTC site-provided reviews—they believe these reviews have a higher likelihood of being manipulated.

Users would rather look at external reviews on Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, or another third-party source.

So if you’re a DTC ecom brand, rather than focus on gathering on-site reviews, consider these tactics:

• Encourage customers to review your product on third-party sites. Since shoppers perceive reviews on third-party review sites as being less biased, you’ll get more ROI from these reviews than ones on your own site.
• Feature user-generated social media content instead. People trust reviews from your users on social media more than the reviews on your site. The logic: If people are willing to speak positively about a product on social media for their followers to see, then the brand can be trusted. So you can embed social media posts from real users directly on your site, as opposed to reviews, and come off as more authentic.
• Prioritize influencer marketing. This is a more involved approach to reviews—you can give micro-influencers your product for free in exchange for honest reviews. People turn to influencers for recommendations. Lean into a source they already trust. To go deep on influencer strategy, check out our influencer marketing playbook.

If you’ve already invested in getting reviews on your site:

• Make it easy to sort and filter them. Otherwise, users will further perceive your site as being manipulative in the kinds of reviews it features.
• Allow users to upload images with their reviews. Reviews with photos convey more authenticity than those without.

Nearly one out of every five users abandon their online purchase because the checkout process is “too long or complicated.”

But research shows that it’s not the number of checkout steps that takes the greatest toll on users—it’s the number of form fields. Why? Users increasingly shop on phones where they struggle to navigate between mobile forms and inefficient keyboards.

Below are a few simple but effective tactics for minimizing the number of fields in the checkout process:

• Use a single “Full Name” field rather than separate “First” and “Last” names. Users tend to type their full name into the first name field anyway.
• Hide Address Line 2, Company, and Coupon fields behind a link. These fields generally apply only to a minority of customers.
• Use city and state auto-detection based on zip code. Besides reducing the number of necessary form fields, this auto-detection feature eliminates potential typos in city names and helps users avoid scrolling through long state drop-downs.
• Hide separate fields for billing address. By default, assume that customers’ shipping address is the same as their billing address. Provide a pre-checked checkbox (“My billing and delivery information are the same”) that users must uncheck to reveal separate billing address fields.
• Encourage users to create an account at the confirmation step—not at the beginning of the checkout process. Since they’ll have already filled out necessary user information in the earlier steps, creating a unique password won’t be so fatiguing. (Whereas if you nudge users to create an account at the beginning of the checkout flow, it feels like a tedious extra step.)

There's often a significant time delay between posting a new blog post and when it actually starts generating traffic.

But you can reduce this time by signaling to the search algorithm that a new page is high quality and should be indexed quickly.

A simple way to kickstart this process: Link to the new article from existing high traffic pages.

Here's how to quickly find high-quality opportunities for internal links:

1. Use Google to run a site search for the topic of your new article. In the search bar, type: site:yoursite.com "topic" For example: site:mparticle.com "data governance"
2. This query will return all pages on your site that have that keyword in them, ranked by relevance.
3. Open the first one in your CMS, quick-find the keyword using "control/command + F". Highlight the first time the keyword appears and hyperlink it to the new blog article.
4. Repeat this process for the top 10 internal pages that have this keyword.
5. Once all 10 internal backlinks are complete, go to Google Search Console and enter the URL of the new blog article. Under URL Inspection, click Request Indexing to ensure the page and associated links are crawled as soon as possible.

You can use this same process for content pillar pages that link to internal blog articles relevant to the keywords mentioned. Backlink hygiene helps search engines understand what your website is about and increases the likelihood that readers click through to multiple pages of your site.

Common belief: Pricing pages should be as simple as possible. No bells, no whistles, no anything that can draw attention away from the “buy” CTA.

But instead of thinking strictly about how much is on your page, think about how much value and friction each element adds.

• Value: Reaffirm that your product is worth buying. Overcome last-minute objections.
• Friction: Minimize confusion and distraction.

What that means in practice is that you can have more elements on your pricing page—as long as each one adds value and reduces friction.

Here are four that might fit the bill, depending on your product and audience:

• Live chat: Some companies only include live chat on their homepage or landing pages. But for high-priced items where customers might have questions before converting, we suggest testing live chat on product pages. You can instantly connect with prospects, resolve their final objections, and optimize your pricing based on the common questions you get asked.
• FAQs: Semrush’s pricing page helps prospects overcome common objections like levels of commitment (“can I cancel my subscription anytime?”) and investment (“what is Semrush’s refund policy?”) Google Workspace has a “Top Questions about Google Workspace Pricing” section on its product page, with questions about plans and users. If you’re aware that users are often struck with questions when they reach your product pages, don’t make them load another page to get those questions answered.
• Social proof: Testimonials, media mentions, or customer logos confirm that your brand is trustworthy and your product is popular. They often prove to be the tipping point for on-the-fence prospects.
• Word counts: Most companies keep their pricing page word count to 200-600 words. You should highlight your unique benefits and most valued features, but if your feature list is huge, consider linking to it instead of putting everything on your pricing page.

Dark mode is becoming more available across all apps, browsers, devices, and email inboxes.

Some surveys suggest that 90%+ of users prefer dark mode wherever it’s available. Even if the 90% is overestimated, it’s safe to say that a large percentage of users experience the internet through dark mode.

So if you’re designing ad creatives solely with light mode in mind, your ads’ CTRs might be taking a beating.

Why? Colors appear differently. With dark mode turned on, contrasting ads originally created for light mode may blend in.

To earn more users’ attention, consider designing and optimizing ad creatives for dark mode:

• Use a patterned or textured background to keep your ad from blending into the surrounding site.
• Choose a color other than black or white for your creative’s background; this will make it stand out in both light and dark mode.
• If you’re showing a product screenshot that blends into the surrounding site, consider adding a frame along the edges of the creative to make it stand out.
• Avoid using thin font weights, which are less readable against a dark background. (Visibility worsens when viewed in dark mode.)
• Create different versions of your existing ads to test colors opposite to those currently used.

Ambiguous delivery dates are a conversion killer for ecom companies.

Shoppers want to know exactly when they'll receive their order before purchasing.

So consider this simple tactic to increase conversion: Add estimated delivery dates to your product pages.

Estimated delivery dates satisfy shoppers' urge to know when they'll receive their orders, yet they're less often used by marketers.

If you have a Shopify site with a 2.0 theme, you can easily add estimated delivery dates to your product pages.

Go to Online Store > Themes > in your theme, click Customize. Open Product > Default Product (or a product template if you’re using one). Add a Custom Liquid section to your product page. Then copy this code and paste it into the Custom Liquid box.

Your delivery dates will update automatically.

Consumers shop differently around the holidays than they do during other times of the year.

Purchasing intent may be more focused on gifting—completely different than how they shop for themselves.

Given the difference in intent, consider tailoring your product copy during the holidays. Doing so can make your pitch more persuasive and increase conversions.

There are a few ways to go about this:

• Help customers envision how your product will bring joy as a gift. For example, you might include copy like “Show your partner how much you care with this deep-kneading shiatsu massager to soothe her back and neck tension.” The copy connects the dots for users by framing products they might not have even previously considered as potential gifts.
• Address concerns from other audience segments. This is especially effective for products that are more commonly given as gifts during the holiday season, like video games. Since parents and relatives may be more likely to purchase a video game than the actual game player, tackle the product from their perspective. Consider adding answers to questions like: what rating does it have? Why does it have that rating? What do other parents think of the game? The point is to reposition your products from the viewpoint of new consumers (gift givers).

Viral cycle time (VCT) is how long it takes a user to invite other users to a product.

It's a vital element of growth, even though it's not discussed nearly as often as viral coefficients (how many new users an average user brings in). To experience product-led growth, your VCT needs to compensate for churn.

TikTok has a short VCT. A daily user sees a great video > shares it > recipients become new users. Lower-frequency products tend to have longer VCTs. B2B enterprise products, for instance, typically take more time to get into, learn, and recommend.

Ignoring VCT is like ignoring your payback period when calculating annual revenue per user (ARPU). If it takes years for your product to make money, you’ll have slower growth than products with quicker earnings. (That’s why you should always factor your payback period into your ARPU:CAC ratio.)

VCT has an inverse relationship with engagement: The higher your engagement, the shorter your VCT. Two ways to factor this relationship into your product build:

1. Design your product so its content is meant to be shared on the spot—not bookmarked and saved for later. Examples: Spotify, social media platforms
2. Design your product so users can easily and immediately collaborate or transact with others, and that interaction makes their user experience better. Examples: Slack, Zoom

Note: Nir Eyal discussed VCT at our Growth Summit in November. You can watch his talk here and join the waitlist for the next one.

Most SEO marketers have been in this situation before:

You've tried just about everything to get a page to rank, yet nothing is working.

The problem might be your "semantic relevance" score. Google uses multiple algorithms to decide who to rank and who to tank. TF-IDF is the “relevance-scoring” algorithm used to measure language patterns and discern whose content does the best job of servicing the target keyword.

All things equal, pages with higher semantic relevance scores are rewarded with higher rankings.

If you've got pages that aren't ranking, consider these steps:

1. Download WebSite Auditor, which analyzes the semantic relevance of your competitors’ pages and compares them against your own
2. Install, and navigate to Content Analysis > TF-IDF
3. Copy and paste the laggard’s url and accompanying keyword(s)
4. Click “Run Audit”

When complete, you’ll see a full list of every relevant word and phrase missing from your content, along with recommendations for how to include them on the page.

Add all missing terms (there will likely be many), re-publish, and you're done.

We've seen sites climb to top positions using this simple method.

There are two drop-off points in every webinar funnel: registration and attendance.

When you promote a webinar through a partner's email list, you can increase the number of signups by around 40% using a clever one-click registration link: embed all the signup details into the link. You can do this with a third-party tool and by collaborating with your partner.

Here's how:

1. Sign up for One Click from Growth Tools (free)
2. Add your webinar details, partner email service, and success page URL
3. Click Create Link
4. Share the link with your webinar partner to use in promo emails

‍

Half a billion people visit the Apple app store each week. These are highly motivated customers looking for one thing: apps. That means unlike general query search engines like Google, the Apple app store caters to high-intent customers ready to download an app.

But because of the way Apple’s targeting options are structured, many marketers fail to get results. Apps need to get the ad group structure and targeting right to truly capitalize on the potential that Apple Search Ads offers.

Here’s one way to get results from Apple Search Ads.

Make three versions of all ad groups (each containing a specific set of keywords) targeting:

1. New users
2. Returning users
3. All users

You might wonder why you should target all users in a separate ad group since you’re already targeting new and returning users.

That’s due to a little-understood nuance of Apple Search Ads:

If you target ‘new’ users or ‘returning’ users (or if you layer on any targeting parameters like age, gender, or demographics), Apple excludes certain sensitive categories of users, like users under 18, those with accounts from educational institutions, and folks who’ve turned off ads personalization, among others. If you fail to target all users, you’d be missing a considerable audience.

Targeting these users obviously widens your reach. But more importantly, it results in stronger economics—since few advertisers target these users, the competition tends to be lower and the economics much stronger.

By targeting all users in addition to new and returning users, you’ll cast a wider net and likely see much stronger performance and lower costs.

Startups that run promotions for big, national holidays are often disappointed by results.

Most brands are running promotions at the same time, and they're crowded out.

Instead of launching promos on major holidays, consider creating a promo around an obscure holiday.

The less popular the holiday, the less competition for customers' attention. So your promotions actually stand out and drive action. Research shows that this approach can lift your promo conversion by as much as 25%.

The key: Identify a holiday that’s relevant to your product and build a story around it.

BarkBox turned an otherwise unknown holiday, National Squirrel Appreciation Day on January 21, into a viral social media campaign.

Instead of searching for affiliate partners from scratch, find out what's working for your competitors and start there.

Here's how:

Affiliate platforms often use standardized link structures to track conversions. If you know the specific URL naming convention, you can use a tool like Ahrefs to find out which affiliates are promoting your competitors.

For example, affiliate links for Acuity Scheduling always start with "?kw="

In Ahrefs:

1. Enter a competitor's URL into Site Explorer
2. Filter backlinks that include "?kw="
3. Sort by Traffic and see which affiliates drive the most volume

‍

And links from the popular podcast hosting platform, Transistor.fm, begin with "?via="

Using this tactic, you can quickly create a list of relevant affiliate partners and backlink opportunities.

Microsites can meaningfully increase web conversion. A microsite is a separate web entity from your main website that's created for marketing purposes. It usually has its own domain name and URL. Marketers generally use microsites to promote events and new products, often with more creative freedom than their main brand allows.\

And here's the benefit. If you create something remarkable (fun, useful, or novel), it could get shared more than your main site otherwise would.

A few examples:

• The meditation app Calm created Do Nothing for 2 Minutes, a site that challenged visitors to not touch their mouse or keyboard for two minutes.
• Adobe set up Creative Types, a personality test that identifies how different people perceive the world and create things.
• The virtual music lesson platform Rock Out Loud Live bought the domain IKilledZoom.com to showcase how its audio quality is better than Zoom's.

For better results, consider these best practices:

• Focus on a relevant topic. Your microsite should relate to the industry or problem your brand solves.
• Link to your main site. Your brand's logo doesn't need to be the focal point of your microsite but it should be easy enough to notice to connection.
• Make it interactive. Interactive microsites like Adobe’s quiz or Calm’s game engage users and make it more likely they'll share it with others.
• Avoid overcomplicating it. A single landing page is fine; so are minimalist designs. Case in point: Digiday's WhatTheFuckIsMyTwitterBio.com, which attracted 100,000 users organically, was set up in two hours.

One reason why some ecommerce stores convert poorly:

Their products are too available—they're always for sale on site. And shoppers are always within a few clicks of buying from competitors.

Put another way, there's no urgency driving people to purchase now.

Urgency motivates action. Entrepreneur Marcus Taylor tested two versions of a landing page. One showed just the price of an offer, and another had a “time left to download” countdown just above the price. The conversion rate was almost three times higher for the version with the countdown.

Two ways you can increase urgency on your ecommerce site:

1. Show limited stock levels to highlight scarcity, using an app like Stock Level Inventory Quality (for Shopify stores). Shoppers who feel FOMO buy faster.
2. Set a deadline. Add a countdown to indicate how little time is left on a deal, or show customers how soon they should order to get a product by a certain date. You can take this a step further by inviting shoppers to set a calendar reminder so they don't forget to buy before the deadline.

Don’t go overboard by using countdowns, stock limits, and “act fast” language. Nobody likes a pushy salesperson, even when that “person” is a piece of code on your website.

Bonus: If you run an ecom store on Shopify, check out our brand new playbook on Shopify conversion.

A single TikTok collaboration video can go viral and generate millions of views and tens of thousands of new users for your app.

But that's unlikely to happen for you unless you understand how to work with content creators.

A few tips to maximize your top of funnel acquisition through TikTok creators:

• Search for creators in your niche with 50k - 250k followers via relevant hashtags. Next, cross-check their 20-30 videos to get a rolling average of engagement—weed out some of the larger accounts that have poor recent engagement. Look for a minimum of 3 videos above 100,000 views, since this de-risks your opportunity to reach many new users.
• Personalize your creator outreach by mentioning the creator's specific audience, and how your partnership will benefit their audience. Also, email them at their listed email instead of sending a DM. Response rate is generally much higher that way.
• Work with your creators to make persona-centric videos. They tend to outperform generic problem-oriented creatives. Top-performing creatives often follow a standard formula:
• Open with a hook identifying the persona
• Highlight the problem
• Solve the problem through your product
• High performing examples: Student, UX designer
• Make sure creators clearly mention how and where to get your product—seems obvious, but many advertisers drop the ball on this and lose out on conversion.

Following these tips, Tactiq.io—a video meeting transcription tool—was able to generate 150,000+ new users on $1820 USD in spend.

This strategy works for some types of products better than others:

• Freemium SaaS products, since there's a low hurdle to get TikTok users to try for free.
• Broadly appealing products that solve a real problem. With TikTok's algorithm, it's harder to reach a very specific audience—your creator's content will be surfaced to very different users. Broad appeal ensures many types of viewers have a reason to get your product.

Fluff muddies messaging.

It's also kind of inconsiderate: It makes readers put in more effort than they need to understand your point.

Here are some free resources for keeping your copywriting fluff-free:

• The Handy List of Human Words—A good list for converting robotic language into human language (e.g., "deactivate" —> "turn off")‍
• Use Simple Words and Phrases—Another good list, this one from a group of federal workers who believe government writing should be plain and clear.‍
• Hemingway Editor—Copy your writing into the editor to see what its reading level is. (6th grade is good; 10th is too hard.) Check for too many adverbs, complex phrases, instances of passive voice, and hard-to-read sentences.‍
• Readability Test Tool—Copy text or a URL into the tool to check its readability according to the Flesch-Kincaid formula, and get helpful stats like average words per sentence.

Most companies don't measure leads generated from content.

If you don't measure, you can't calculate customer acquisition cost (CAC)—there's no way for you to tell whether your content marketing is profitable.

Here's an easy way to measure acquisitions from content marketing using a simple ‘thank you' page and Google Analytics.

Two steps:

1. Configure your opt-in forms so they point to a unique 'thank you' page after a user enters their email. Example: https://growandconvert.com/thank-you/ Anyone who lands on this page must have opted in through your lead capture form(s). Nobody else will see this page.
2. Set up a new goal in Google Analytics: Once your lead capture forms are set up to send opt-ins to that thank you page you made, you’ll need to configure the page as a new goal in GA. Here's a 2-minute setup video that shows you how.

GA will track how many users reach your thank you page (a “Goal Completion”). Measure that number against the cost it takes you to create your content, and you'll be able to calculate your CAC.

A common misconception about experimentation is that it’s all data, all the time.

Data is a critical part of it, yes. But there’s a human element to testing too. After all, you are trying to understand your users. On both ends, people are involved. While researching, hypothesizing, designing tests, and analyzing results, judgment is key.

One area where judgment comes in: when to make the call to override A/B test results.

Imagine you run a copywriting test:

1. One version of the copy is true and honest. You accurately portray your value props.
2. Another version slightly overstates the benefits of your product.

And the second version wins the A/B test.

You'll earn more short-term profit by going with the data and implementing the second version of the copy. But doing so could actually harm your customer lifetime value—those who purchased might feel deceived and likely won't purchase again.

You're better off overriding A/B test results when your winning test variant is harmful to your long-term sustainability and growth.

Another example:

When Netflix was testing Grace and Frankie (show) promos, they found that users clicked more on an image with just one co-star, instead of the two co-stars together. Netflix went with the image of the duo anyway.

Learning: You should also consider overriding your findings if they present ethical or legal concerns, don’t align with your company values, or run the risk of demoralizing your team.

Even if your Facebook video ads have strong hook, that doesn’t mean users will stick around to watch the whole thing.

And if your ad can’t sustain their interest, people probably won’t convert.

To find out if your video ads are generating interest, look at their average play time. Then look at their performance data in Ads Manager. There's a chart that shows the percentage of video plays for different seconds of your video ads. Use it to find out at exactly what times users drop off—then map these points in your video.

Consider why users might not be motivated to keep watching at these points:

• Is it after the first cut?
• Does text appear?
• If so, how long is it?

You're not looking to compare it to a play time benchmark—video ad lengths vary drastically between companies.

But you can look for the most intense drop-offs and consider editing your video ads to hold attention at those critical time periods.

Reddit is rich with content ideas and audience insights, but it can be difficult to navigate. Try these three free tools for more efficient Reddit research.

• Subreddit Stats: Find out which subreddits have seen the most growth in the last day, week, month, and year. Use it to find out what new trends or interests are gaining traction. For example, the recent growth in r/ArivaCoin might explain why a new cryptocurrency is gaining momentum. You can also look specifically at the growing subreddits relevant to your industry to see what kinds of content are being posted. Then see if you can relate this topic back to your product.
• Map of Reddit: Find out what other subreddits members of a particular subreddit are drawn to—in other words, where other segments of your audience may hang out online. For example, searching for the subreddit upcycling shows an overlap with subreddits like ZeroWaste, sewing, and declutter.
• Reddit Saved: Although you can save posts and comments on Reddit, you can’t easily search through this saved content. This app offers a solution, so you can continue saving content for inspiration and then quickly search for a specific post later.

Customers discover errors in SaaS products all the time. Or any product for that matter. When they do, Google is the first place they look for solutions.

If you’re a software company, you can target specific error message keywords your ideal customers might search for, and write about the solution for easy, high-intent ranking opportunities.

For example, SEO tool Ahrefs could look up a competitor’s keyword rankings and filter for error terms like “problem” or “fix” or “broken.”

Ahrefs can help fix the error, then try to persuade users to switch from their competitor.

Another example: If you’re a cryptocurrency SaaS, you might review Coindesk’s rankings for relevant errors or problems people are searching for and you know the answers to.

Some search volumes may be low, but the intent is generally high.

Anyone looking for solutions to such specific problems is feeling the pain and needs an immediate fix—if you can give it to them in an article, video, or FAQ page, you become the hero, the solution they’ve been searching for.

Amazon advertisers can consistently get around a 10% conversion rate. That's wildly high compared to most paid channels.

Amazon’s users are high-intent and ready to buy.

One mistake we see tons of first-time Amazon advertisers make: they fail to optimize their Amazon product pages.

Here's how you can optimize yours:

• Add a compelling title that includes at least one keyword. When you run an Amazon ad campaign, you’ll gain critical keyword insights that will help you further optimize your product page, based on which search terms are converting. Until then, use competitor research tools like Helium 10 or AMZScout and keyword tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google's free Keyword Planner.
• Keep your product description between 250 and 1,000 words. Most Amazon shoppers don't read—they'll skim your description specifically to make sure it solves their problem. High-converting pages will list about five bullet points. Give shoppers what they want, and nothing more.
• Use keywords, but don’t repeat them. Keyword stuffing is as frowned upon on Amazon as it is in content marketing—and Amazon might demote your product's organic ranking if you repeat your keywords too many times.
• Good photos might not be enough. Consider adding a high-quality, high-resolution video. Your video should show the product in use. Pictures can hook shoppers, but a quality video demonstrating the product is often what converts shoppers who are comparing your product to competitors. Aim for around seven images and one video.
• Make it honest. Your product reviewers will be the first to call you out for overpromising or being inaccurate.

Customer reviews are important, but you might not have them yet—all the more reason to launch Amazon ads and drive conversions.

If you sell a high-ticket item like a program or a service, you're likely relying on some combination of free content, ads, and sales to move leads through your funnel towards purchase.

But consider this complimentary tactic: Create a paid email course.

Build a low-cost course or challenge (under $100) delivered via email, designed to give users a quick win by solving a specific problem in a short amount of time—ideally no more than 7 days.

The benefits of these courses are threefold:

1. Compared to longer, more intensive courses, they're easy to make. If you're already creating content, it'll be easy enough for you to repurpose existing material.
2. Because they’re a paid product, these courses filter out users only looking for freebies—when there's skin in the game, people take your content seriously. And the low price point attracts those who are hesitant to purchase your more expensive offerings.
3. They build on your credibility, giving customers a taste of what you have to offer.

A paid email course moves users further down your funnel, making it easier to upsell more rigorous programs or services later on.

Some examples and ideas for paid email challenges:

• Sean Anthony's 7-Day Challenge → Funnels users toward Sean's Email Side Hustle course
• An intro to design course → Leads to retainers for a creative design agency
• How to Start a Keto Diet in 7 Days → Funnels users toward customized meal plan services

Content with minimal search value might hurt a website when left unpruned.

This happens all the time, yet most companies don't realize it's negatively impacting their search ranking.

To find out if your site suffers from a thin content problem, follow these steps:

• Open a fresh tab to Google search
• Type in the search modifier "site:www.your-domain-url-here" ex: site:demandcurve.com
• Head to the absolute last page of the search results and scroll to the bottom

If you see a message from Google that says something like:

"...we have omitted some entries very similar to the [big number] already displayed"...

Then you've got a thin content problem on your hands.

To fix it, use Google Analytics + AHREFs (or SEO tool of choice) and:

• Delete no-traffic, no search-value pages, OR
• Rewrite and optimize them using a premium tool like Clearscope

It may hurt to kill underperforming pages that you've spent time creating, but you want to be swift and complete here.

Unless your site is new or suffers from mission-critical technical SEO errors, expect to see an uptick in rankings within a few weeks.

Email open rates have always been kind of a vanity metric.

They rarely have any effect on business outcomes. And they don’t tell you how good your email is. They tell you how good your subject line is, and how much recipients liked your past emails.

With the release of iOS 15, they’re even more useless.

Apple’s new Mail Privacy Protection keeps senders from knowing if an email has been opened. It also blocks senders from seeing recipients’ IP addresses.

Instead of caring about open rates, here are some better metrics to monitor:

• Click reach rate: percentage of subscribers driving clicks. Calculated by dividing unique clicks by unique sent over a given period.
• Click-through rate: percentage of unique subscribers who click on an email. This is an obvious, yet important metric.
• Revenue per subscriber.
• Revenue per email.

Focus on improving these metrics—and avoid the rest—to increase the performance of your email marketing campaigns.

The best testimonials start with skepticism.

It's easy to think that start-to-finish positive testimonials drive the most conversions.

But "reverse testimonials" can be more effective. They start with skepticism: fears, doubts, or obstacles.

Everyone has objections. Testimonials that address them first build connections with others who are on the fence because of their own reservations. Plus, they add a storytelling arc, from problem/concern to success.

You can get better, transformational testimonials by asking your reviewer a few key questions:

1. What was the problem you were having before you discovered our product?
2. What did the frustration feel like as you tried to solve the problem?
3. What obstacle would have prevented you from purchasing?
4. What was different about our product?
5. Take us to the moment when you realized our product was actually working to solve your problem.
6. Tell us what life looks like now that your problem is solved or being solved.

Asking questions also gives helpful guidelines to testimonial givers, so they aren’t staring at a blank screen trying to think of what to say.

Bonus for higher-converting testimonials: If possible, align a testimonial's messaging with its placement. If your customer talks about a specific feature, spotlight their comments in your marketing surrounding that feature, like a dedicated landing page or re-engagement email. If they came across your brand through a YouTube ad, how much more effective would it be if the testimonial giver also discovered you through YouTube, clicked, and is now thriving?

Ecommerce cart abandonment has skyrocketed. Retargeting helps, and it's even more effective if you time it right.

Pre-pandemic, ecommerce shoppers abandoned their carts about 70-80% of the time. For some industries, that number rose to nearly 95% with the onset of Covid.

One theory: Our online shopping style now more closely resembles our pre-pandemic window-shopping habits. We look, we make a mental note, we move on.

You won’t recover all those lost sales, but you can get many of them back through retargeting messages (email, SMS, app notifications) or ads that remind shoppers about the products waiting for them.

Don’t retarget right away, though. Test waiting one to three days.

Sooner than that, and you might be marketing to shoppers who simply haven't proceeded to purchase yet but intend to. Longer than that, and there’s a good chance they’ll forget about their interest in your product.

When you do retarget, consider using scarcity or urgency to drive the purchase.

Example: Say you normally run a simple retargeting ad for a product a shopper added to their cart. Try adding messaging to your ad indicating how many other people bought the product today. Or, if true, indicate that you're running out of stock, and they should act quickly to get one.