Help me&cofounder do A/B testing of our landing, and settle down our discussion
** Updated 10 May **
Thank you all for the amazing feedbacks - and kindness in giving us a bit of your time!!
Launching a new SAAS is never easy, and specially when you're a first time founder!
I've spent the past 4 days redesigning the landing and rewriting the copy.
🚀 It's live on https://www.creatora.io
The old designs are not available anymore, so if other people join this post - I'm sorry, but it's too late 🫠
Original post:
Hello to everyone reading this post!
Variant A: https://www.creatora.io/
Variant B: https://www.creatora.io/redesign
We're testing:
- Videos vs. Illustrations for features
- Footer Call to Action
Which one do you like better?
Just reply with "A" or "B"
... or write a poem if you feel like it 😅
Hi @ggbit,
First of all - kudos. It's time to give Teachable, Thinkific and the likes a run for their money. I led an EdTech startup and know the space well, and even without knowing much about your product I am already intrigued.
Now, as for the differences between the two pages, they are so subtle that they would probably not make a measurable difference in my opinion. If someone scrolled all the way to the footer, they are already show some interest. What you're fighting is won or lost at the top of the page, where I see very little difference between the two options.
In my no-so-long-ago past, I was a filmmaker, and now I combine cinematic storytelling with business messaging, like your landing page. In movies, we differentiate between a story and the plot. The plot is the surface events, what you read on the page. The story is the subtext, what people feel when the message is delivered. In most cases, the story is more important than the plot, and all our creative decisions are usually story driven and not plot driven.
In your case, the plot is that you sell courses alone, that's what's written in your about page. The landing page: "Where Courses Sell". Now, I think I should read it as, "where courses SELL", kind of implying that they don't really sell elsewhere (I agree, from experience). But that is still very close to "the plot." Add to that the background videos and the sub-text... and I'm left still wondering what the difference is. In our world, as you know I'm sure, that first impression is everything. If only it was like in the movies, where people give you a few more minutes because they already bought a ticket... instead its more like YouTube or instagram—people scroll in seconds if attention is not grabbed. They won't get to that footer you asked about.
So my advice, and I know - I hate it when I ask about one thing and then someone sends me back to the drawing board, is to do what filmmakers do and focus on subtext and not on the plot.
Thanks a lot for dedicating us so much of your time Tal!
Your amazing feedback had me stay awake all night! Thinking about what you said
I think you spotted a major flaw in your copy: we've been always undecided which value proposition to communicate (as probably most first-time founders). When you think you're better in A, B, C, it's hard to choose.
But you're totally right, having a cohesive story and with a clear value proposition is what is needed in a landing page.
I would really love to hear your opinion on this!
And not only! You said you've been running an Ed-Tech startup in the past, I would really like to hear more about it, if you're up to sharing 🤗
Thanks @ggbit I'm so happy that you found this feedback useful. I moved on from my EdTech venture, but I learned a ton and was, at some point, in the exact space you are aiming for (targeting independent course creators) so Im happy to share anything from my experience that can be useful.
Now I'm mostly mixing my experience as a founder, 20+ years as a filmmaker and 15+ years as a professor in academia to work with founders and help them increase their impact - exactly what our conversation here is about. If what I wrote earlier resonated and caused you to rethink the way you present your business, then that's exactly what I'm aiming for!
As for the landing page, here's my two cents. First, it is difficult to always back engineer from the final result so I apologize again if my comment will send you to rethink... my goal is not to cause more work. Most of the work happens in a conversation and thinking beforehand, and ultimately it is quicker than this exchange on the form. I'm new on this forum so I am not sure about the rules, but if you wanted to jump on a Zoom call I'd be happy to - not motivated by money here so it's not that kind of a promotion.
Let's say that you are standing in font of 1,000 people and want to send a strong message that results in some action. You know that about half of them may not be relevant, but the other half is. Do you need to clear the room of the first half before talking to the second half, who may also have little patience and short attention span? Not really, right? Who cares about the other half, let them be bored and leave while you already talk to your people.
If you agree with that, then why is the first thing on the page meant to clarify who it is for? Why not assume that the person who it's for (who has little patience and attention span) is there and just start talking with them? If it's not them, they'll leave and have a good life. So now that's out of the way, what do we want to tell that creator which will stop them in their tracks? What, out of pain points like:
What out of these keeps a creator up at night? And then, what is that feeling they feel (not getting from "plot" to "story") when they experience that pain point. For instance: it takes a lot of time to launch a course -> I feel like I am held back by tech instead of pulling me forward, it takes time to grow an audience -> I feel ignored and overlooked, etc etc.
That first message must address that feeling, to make the reader suddenly feel like there's a way out of that cage, that someone understands them. The information (how do you do it?) comes after.
The downside of having an even number of co-founders 🥲
The pros definitely outnumber the cons! But yeah, it’d be nice to have someone to break the tie in situations like this 🫠
Hi,
I’m specialized in CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), which is the art of improving conversions on the web.
Right now, I’m offering completely free support for landing pages. Basically, I’ll audit your landing page and give you clear recommendations, both short- and long-term, to help boost your conversions, all based on research and proven methods.
I provide this service for free under these conditions:
Feel free to reach out if you’d like my help, or if you know someone who might benefit from it. Thanks for your time, and have a great day.
You can contact me at: tom.haug67@gmail.c o m
love the product and ui.
personally dont see this as a/b test too though . way too subtle to be measuring. too much scroll to be testing footer call to action.
great videos and visuals, but suggest trying to cut down by 50% at least on your homepage.
i like the overall messaging, but feel it lacks precisely where you're testing (the footer cta). try to get that aligned first, and the general flow, then from there i'd say check what's really measurable to test and will show you real impact.
similar to what @TalLazar said .. "Where Courses Sell" caught my attention and made me want to scroll. but was lost there on... wouldn't have made it all the way down to actually notice the footer cta if weren't taking a more analytical look at this.
hope it helps and good luck!
actually why don't you try taking some of your own inspiration from the page your already have "your journey on creatora" ... not word by word but felt like something i'd give more attention to a/b testing on homepage. you're speaking to your customer there. from there, keep only essential features videos and use the rest as resources to tie in your product. cheers
Thanks a lot for the feedback indiewing!
And sending you hugs to Sao Paulo (I visited 2 years ago!)
I've just finished organising all these amazing feedbacks, and pushing a new (hopefully improved) version of our landing
Based on your feedbacks I tried to:
If you feel like it and have time, I would love to hear what do you think!
Have a nice day and thanks again for your time 🤗
I like them both, the site is very well done
Thanks Azerax! 🫶 Canadians are always super positive ☀️
B on desktop
A on mobile
I like the horizontal scrolling that B has on desktop. Seems like that goes away and takes up a lot of space on mobile vs, the original mobile design that puts the videos behind buttons.
Thanks a lot for taking the time Joshua 🤗
You're totally spot on, the landing on mobile was becoming way toooo long with variant B!
So I've followed your opinion and made it shorter: I used an accordion instead of the swiper though, just because it was strange to have the video and then below it an illustration. Now with the accordion I hide all secondary features and show them just on a click.
I would really like to hear your take on it, if you think it's an improvement (or not), you've been the only one mentioning the mobile UX, which I really appreciate 😊
I just coded a site with a similar slider style layout for media and had to think through the mobile behavior, so it was fresh in my mind. Honestly, I don't care for the the updated accordion layout. It loses a lot of the visual interest and is easy to skip over as just a bullet point list. I'd prefer to see something extra like icons, adjusting the spacing so there's room to fit in the description text, or having a small thumbnail on the left with the title to the right.
Not sure if you have stats for your site, but web traffic in general is over 50% mobile. The design industry seems to still be stuck in a desktop-first design process though.
Are there any reviews you can put on the Varient B
Hi creatixailab! Wow directly from Amman 😊
I would really love to visit one day, I have a big passion for Arabic countries!
Back to your question: unfortunately not yet, we have 2-3 creators using the platform (apart from us), cause they're friends that we know. But we're just going public now so we still have to collect reviews.
I would go with variant B. But i felt there was too much of everything - somewhere in the middle i got lost as to what was i doing there, what it was and where was i going with this.
I loved the footer CTA (i like the grid layout)
Thanks a lot for taking the time Urbanooks! I would call you by your name, but you don't have it here on IH 🫠
You know? We looked at your feedback, and the one of the others, and thought "he's totally spot on" - we agreed immediately with everything you said
I've pushed an update now of the landing, trying to fix exactly everything you mentioned:
I would honestly love to hear your thoughts if you have a few minutes free one of these days 🤗
Are there any reviews you can put on the Varient B
Hi Hirun! 😊
You know, it seems like @creatixailab copied your reply (and it seems like it's doing it with others as well 😄)
Back to your question: unfortunately not yet, we have 2-3 creators using the platform (apart from us), cause they're friends that we know. But we're just going public now so we still have to collect reviews.
Hey @ggbit I guess reviews from friends would be always positive and you can get some video testimonials from them as well and then put them on your landing page. Leads would trust video testimonials more than written testimonials
Hi Hirun, thanks for pointing that out. That wasn’t my intention at all — I just tried to answer quickly on similar threads and might have reused a structure. I’m new here and still learning the best way to engage! Appreciate your patience.
Would go with B. The videos in A are too many and were overwhelming for me. Although when it comes to the CTA in the footer I preferred "A" since I found it more visible/stood out better.
Thanks for giving us some of your time, I really appreciate it! 😊
Yeah apparently A with all those videos is overwhelming for everybody, so we listened to your opinion and went with variant B, thanks again!
Oh and for the CTA we went with variant A (the grid with pictures of creators), so you are totally spot on on that as well!
I spent the last 4 days gathering all your feedbacks and redesigning the flawed parts of the landing, if you have some free minutes one of these days/weeks I would love to hear again from you 🤗
Help me and my co-founder with A/B testing for our landing page. We need valuable insights to optimize the user experience and finalize our discussions on the best design and approach. Your feedback will be crucial in making data-driven decisions to ensure the landing page performs effectively.
Variant B does it for me.
With all due respect, I dont care enough about your product to waste time watching a video, is my immediate reaction. testimonials would have a better impact. and i would put all that stuff on a separate page for if the viewer is interested in details.
and in my opinion, your both right and could meet in the middle with gifs. That way it plays on loop immediately and i dont have to watch.
in regards to the website. i prefer simple websites with a call to action, this has way too much, which just turns me off. Feels like im reading a manual. all i want to know as a stranger is:
what does this do?
who is this for?
just my two cents, take it with a grain of salt
Hi Clyph!! 🤗
You know, you've been the first one to reply and I'm super grateful for that, I think you incentivised other amazing people to help us as well 🫶
As for your feedbacks:
Videos being a time-waste: you're right, it's hard to admit it with ourselves but people are not so interested in Creatora, they want to understand if it's a fit for their problem. So we went with illustrations, scrolling horizontally (to reduce vertical space as well)
I've rewritten basically the entire copy 😂 You're right, the user has to understand what Creatora does and who's for immediately, truth be told the underlying problem is that we were trying to communicate all the things we're good at. Now we focus just on one - hopefully clear - value proposition (which is being fast to make you launch and grow a course - and then the features just explain the how)
I would really really like to hear your thoughts on it!
If you have some more minutes for us, of course 🤗
Sending you a hug from Vietnam!
Okay revisited the website, here is my feedback.
I love the intro with "The platform for..." This tells target audience. Maybe find an artistic way to put that at the top of the page so that the video has context? because when i opened up the page i didn't understand the video playing at the top until i read the "platform for..." section but this is honestly not a big deal, especially if your marketing correctly. Also may want to take advantage of the SEO words "influencer", "UGC", etc.
Recommend replacing the subsection that starts with "Launch Fast, grow faster, and never deal..." with:
"Launch Fast" if your the only one in the space doing this,
"Launch faster" if you have competitors,
or "Launch in X days" if your in a 'red ocean'. The rest is unnecessary.
Love the get started part, but don't like the formating on the price next to it. E 20/month
Gona be honest, there is a lot I would tweak about this website. But real world data is better then my critique and I am not being paid to critique your website so I'll simply say compare your website with businesses killing it in your industry and make sure it makes sense with your marketing strategy in terms of:
are you sending cold leads to your website or warm leads to your website?
is this B2B or B2C product?
Lastly thank you warm words.
*Hug deflected at a 90 degree angle from the sun, into a firm business handshake.
I fully agree. The hover to watch is too much effort for me.
I would say B but play the video's automatically.
Hi Max!! A fellow european doing startup as well 🫶
We had to agree as well! The feedbacks have been so overwhelmingly similar to each other that it was obvious there was a problem!
So I've redesigned the landing (it's now live) based on all your opinions, yours included!
We evaluated playing the videos automatically, but then I'm afraid the user would loose context of what's happening in the video.
So we removed the hover-to-play, set a cover that shows the actual feature that is being talked about, and made it click-to-play just in case the user is more interested.
Can we ask you kindly some more minutes of your time to hear your opinion again?
Be as direct as you wish, we need to improve the landing in order to build a proper startup (which our continent really needs, as you know 😊)
I would offer you a coffee to thank you for this detailed feedback! ❤️🤗
Seriously, it means a world to us, thanks!