By now, you’ve in all probability heard one thing about Zola. If you happen to haven’t, suffice to say that they’re sort of an enormous deal within the wedding ceremony trade.
After exploding onto the scene in 2013, Zola rapidly grew to become the fastest-growing wedding ceremony startup in the USA, trouncing old-school rivals with their headache-free method to big-day planning. Zola lets {couples} handle the entire course of in a single on-line house, providing 1000’s of merchandise from a whole lot of manufacturers and offering a ton of flexibility. You possibly can register for every part from a cookware set to a crusing tour, change luxurious needs for sensible wants, and postpone transport till you’ve settled into your proverbial nest collectively.
Over the previous six years, Zola has continued to develop its full suite of wedding ceremony planning instruments. The objective? Drive visitors by changing into a one-stop-shop for the newly engaged. It’s labored like a scorching rattling, too. At the moment, Zola is well on its way to a unicorn valuation as one of many high ecommerce marketplaces on this planet.
However the three-tiered cake of Zola’s super progress has a secret filling. What you in all probability haven’t heard is how the model’s entrepreneurs helped drive buyer acquisition like mad by persuasively speaking Zola’s advantages to the various segments of its audience.
How Can Ecommerce Entrepreneurs Get Extra Gross sales By means of Focused Messaging?
Meet Ari Gayer and Shivanie Barapatre, core members of the client acquisition crew at Zola. In simply over a yr, they (together with the remainder of Zola’s advertising and marketing crew) managed to:
- Construct and launch 300+ customized touchdown pages for Zola’s particular viewers segments.
- Optimize their paid search and social campaigns (particularly Google and Fb) utilizing focused messaging.
- Enhance their conversion charges on promoting visitors by anyplace from 5% to twenty% over web site pages.
As quickly as we heard Zola’s wild acquisition story, we knew we would have liked the entire image—so we rang up Ari and Shivanie on the firm’s headquarters in NYC to get the main points.
The Problem: Get Extra {Couples} Registered on Zola Utilizing Google & Fb Adverts
Ari, who’s been at Zola for 3 years and is now Head of Acquisition, performed a key function within the firm’s fast success. Since 2016, he’s been liable for driving visitors to Zola’s ecommerce property and getting new clients into the ecosystem—and as with all fast-growth startups, there’s an urgency to maintain the momentum going.
A part of the problem has at all times been that Zola’s viewers is fairly distinctive in ecomm. {Couples} join planning instruments anyplace from a number of months to some years forward of their precise wedding ceremony (which is when Zola makes financial institution). This implies the model’s goal clients have various ranges of familiarity with the marriage planning course of: some simply want to listen to what makes Zola particular, whereas others nonetheless must be offered on the precise software they’re on the lookout for. And by persevering with so as to add new performance to the platform, Zola has been broadening its use instances whereas additional segmenting its viewers.
Rising the variety of soon-to-be-weds on the platform was precedence primary for Ari and his crew (together with Shivanie, who got here aboard in 2018), and collectively they carried out a sturdy paid search and social technique. But it surely’s one factor to get visitors, and a complete ‘nother factor to convert visitors.
It didn’t take lengthy for the Zola advertising and marketing crew to acknowledge that the range of its viewers (in information and intent) meant that sending all of its visitors to at least one place (just like the Zola homepage) wasn’t one of the simplest ways to get {couples} registered. As a substitute, they began experimenting with how they may ship a related and compelling pitch to every of their segments—and that meant touchdown pages.
A variety of the work [was] about bettering the conversion charge of customers as soon as they really land[ed] on the web page. And so, managing search, plenty of that—by extension—finally ends up being touchdown web page testing.
Ari, Shivanie, and the squad had dabbled with utilizing touchdown pages to focus on individuals who have been on the lookout for a particular planning software, or who have been at a specific stage of the signup course of. Early returns confirmed that touchdown pages had the potential to assist them get extra lovebirds registered than they may by way of their web site alone.
The issue was that Zola’s entrepreneurs have been coding pages the ol’ customary method and utilizing a third-party optimization software to check. They didn’t have a way to launch pages as rapidly as they wished and it slowed down their execution.
We have been doing smaller-scale issues, like altering a hero picture, altering button copy or button shade, stuff like that. However we wished to construct fully new touchdown pages. One thing a lot bigger scale, and with the potential to have a a lot greater affect.
Ari knew that touchdown pages might play an even bigger function of their signup journey, changing into an necessary first-touch and higher speaking the advantages of Zola—particularly for individuals who have been unfamiliar with the platform.
It’s useful to have a precursor to a product web page that introduces you to the Zola universe—what we provide, what we offer, what the advantages are. It permits us to present an incredible first impression of who we’re and what we convey to the desk earlier than having guests simply leap into the product.
That’s the place touchdown pages can assist.
In the event that they have been actually gonna crank buyer acquisition into overdrive, Zola’s advertising and marketing division wanted a option to communicate convincingly to every of their particular person viewers segments. To try this, they’d must discover a faster, simpler option to launch touchdown pages on their very own.
The Resolution: Construct Touchdown Pages with Focused Messaging for Totally different Viewers Segments
Enter Unbounce. With a full-fledged touchdown web page platform of their arsenal, Ari and Shivanie have been all of the sudden in a position to:
- Construct and launch customized touchdown pages wayyy sooner—with none assist from builders.
- Ship persuasive messaging to every of their completely different viewers segments, relying on issues like search intent, engagement standing, gender, gadget, and extra.
Ari factors to Zola’s current collaboration round wedding ceremony invites with Draper James, a clothes line based by Reese Witherspoon, for example of how the Unbounce builder made his crew extra unbiased.
We would have liked a touchdown web page as a result of we knew that the press would cowl the collaboration, we knew that we have been going to ship emails about it, we knew we have been going to ship paid visitors to it. However the entire engineering sources have been occupied with the opposite components of the collaboration. So we used Unbounce.
With Unbounce, Ari and his crew dragged-and-dropped collectively a touchdown web page celebrating the partnership very quickly—and it seems to be unbelievable.
Now that they’re in a position to create touchdown pages sooner, Zola’s advertising and marketing crew has discovered far more about their viewers intent—and form their messaging to extend the possibility of conversion.
For instance, Ari and Shivanie acknowledged they may regulate their touchdown web page content material for various search queries that replicate how far alongside a customer is within the shopping for course of. Core phrases like “wedding ceremony registry” and “wedding ceremony web site” point out somebody who is aware of precisely what they need, wherein case Zola is best off making a direct pitch round particular advantages and pricing construction.
However as Shivanie factors out, extra exploratory search phrases like “finest wedding ceremony registry concepts” typically require softer messaging.
Once we see folks trying to find a a lot longer-tailed time period, then we all know to tailor our messaging [on the landing page] to have much more details about what a registry is earlier than introducing Zola’s registry and explaining the way it compares to others.
[We’ll present] much more instructional data upfront, as a result of we all know we’re climbing a steeper hill to get this particular person to transform.
Zola’s acquisition crew has additionally discovered heaps about optimizing for guests consuming content material on completely different gadgets. At the moment, nearly each touchdown web page Zola creates are available in each a desktop and cellular model.
Based mostly on our Unbounce testing, we realized that there are completely different intents for people who find themselves coming to our pages on desktop versus cellular. What Unbounce has actually helped us do is create completely different experiences for these gadgets.
For instance, having the ability to have extra clear, concise messaging on cellular—with much less textual content and visuals—goes to transform higher.
The Outcomes: 300+ Energetic Touchdown Pages & 5-20% Extra Conversions
Since beginning to use Unbounce, Ari and his crew have created nicely over 300 touchdown pages. That’s nearly one touchdown web page for every single day they’ve been on the platform. (Fairly a change from ready round for builders, huh?)
These pages are every designed to talk to a particular sort of prospect: somebody utilizing Pinterest on desktop that wishes to construct a marriage web site, or a not-yet-engaged couple thinking about taking a quiz to find out how their most popular dwelling decor model might form their registry. (Yeah, it will get that particular.)
The variety of new touchdown pages that we’re launching has grown exponentially. Unbounce has allowed us to tailor these pages to who the viewers is, to have way more coherent ads—between the advert, the touchdown web page, and the entire expertise.
Having the ability to launch new pages quick implies that Ari and Shivanie can at all times be optimizing to determine what resonates finest with their viewers. (ABO, folks.) Getting tremendous exact of their focused messaging has helped Zola flip extra of their paid Google and Fb visitors into new signups.
We’ve measured a rise in conversion charge. It varies from the completely different touchdown pages that we’ve launched (since we’ve launched so many), nevertheless it’s a rise of 5% to twenty% in conversion charge over the web site pages we have been utilizing beforehand.
That’s not all. Ari and Shivanie’s touchdown web page experiments have been so profitable, they’re carrying by way of their learnings to form the construction of Zola’s homepage.
We took the highest-converting touchdown web page we had and noticed that the precise picture, the hero copy, the order of sections have been changing very nicely. So we picked up that web page, constructed it out a bit of bit extra by way of copy, and utilized the identical construction to our essential homepage.
Right here’s Zola’s web site homepage alongside one in all its most visited touchdown pages—however which is which?
Ship Loopy-Particular Messaging & Drive Extra Gross sales with Touchdown Pages
Ari and Shivanie had the daunting process of continuous to develop the client base of an ecommerce darling already rising at breakneck velocity. With the flexibility to rapidly construct touchdown pages that tackle the precise intent or information hole of a goal buyer, they managed to refine their paid search and social campaigns and ship a sizeable uptick in conversions. Not dangerous for simply over a yr of labor.
The takeaway? Counting on builders to execute your advertising and marketing is incompatible with progress. To get the identical sort of outcomes as Ari and Shivanie, you want to have the ability to find out about your viewers quick and optimize your digital advertising and marketing sooner. You want to have the ability to communicate compellingly to your completely different viewers segments in a method that makes clear why your product is a superb match for them.
You in all probability want a touchdown web page.
