A User-Centered Approach to Landing Page Optimization in a Software-as-a-Service Business
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Journal Title
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Volume Title
Perustieteiden korkeakoulu |
Master's thesis
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Authors
Date
2020-06-16
Department
Major/Subject
Computer Science
Mcode
SCI3042
Degree programme
Master’s Programme in Computer, Communication and Information Sciences
Language
en
Pages
88 + 10
Series
Abstract
There are two essential steps in the digital marketing process: acquisition and conversion. Acquisition describes the efforts of getting a potential buyer to visit a business's website. Conversion is concerned with convincing that prospect, who has arrived on a website, to take a desired action, thus to convert. The process of improving conversions is called conversion rate optimization (CRO). While marketers increasingly understand the importance of optimizing their website for conversion, often CRO is only done in a quantitative way, relying on web metrics and visitor behavior. This limited approach does not consider the reasons behind visitors' behavior, their underlying needs and way of thinking when evaluating products and services online. Yet, those reasons are crucial to understand when optimizing for conversion. The objective of this study is to investigate how methods from user-centered design can aid in uncovering the needs and thought process of website visitors evaluating a Software-as-a-Service solution online. Additionally, the visitor's overall buying process is studied. The study is conducted as semi-structured interviews and retrospective testing with six recent website visitors interested in the SaaS service. Thematic analysis and customer journey mapping are used to analyze the interview data. The results indicate that visitor needs are mostly connected to inquiring service-related information, such as performance or features, as well as the pricing range. Additionally, aspects such as ease of getting started, service flexibility and quality support had a strong influence. It was found that most of these aspects are typical for successful SaaS solutions. The overall decision making process of choosing a SaaS solution proved to be fairly unstructured. However, being present in the minds of potential customers before they feel the need to search for solutions actively seems to be crucial in order to be considered. In addition to that, the first impression of a business's online presence also largely impacts visitor trust and consideration. Regarding the final decision making, it is to be noted that technical visitors are strong influencers but the final provider selection is a collaborative effort. Concerning the page itself, visitor conversion is generally favored when presenting relevant content to visitors in relevant order, while leaving out irrelevant content.Description
Supervisor
Nieminen, MarkoThesis advisor
Harmonen, TimoFlorack, Yves
Keywords
user-centered design, conversion rate optimization, landing page optimization, website optimization, software-as-a-service